Burns & Levinson, Perkins to merge
New law firm will boost intellectual property practice
The Boston law firms Burns & Levinson and Perkins Smith & Cohen will merge, forming a regional firm of about 140 lawyers. The new firm, to be called Burns & Levinson, will have a strong intellectual property practice that will make it a formidable force in the region's technology and life sciences markets, according to the firms' managing partners.
And unlike other, larger law firm mergers aimed at achieving a national presence with offices on both coasts, the union unveiled yesterday is designed to create a strong regional firm with deep New England roots, they said.
''We don't have national beachhead aspirations, but we do want to grow and enhance our reputation in Boston," said David P. Rosenblatt, managing partner of Burns & Levinson. ''We may well look to other parts of New England to expand ourselves, but we have no vision to be a national firm or stretch to Chicago or the West Coast at this point. We want to build the strongest regional powerhouse we can."
Burns & Levinson, founded in 1960, has expanded steadily in recent years, growing from a firm of 65 lawyers in 2001 to about 100 today. Headquartered in Boston, it has 10 lawyers in Providence, four in Hingham, and three in Washington, D.C. The firm also maintains space in Waltham and plans to open a part-time office in Shanghai early next year to bolster its work in China.
Perkins, founded in 1975, has 41 lawyers and, with the exception of one lawyer who works in Washington, is Boston-based.
More than half of the lawyers at Perkins specialize in intellectual property, including patent work, making them ''the jewel of this deal for us, without question," said Rosenblatt, who will remain managing partner. Burns & Levinson now has only eight intellectual property lawyers.
''It's a very crowded legal market here, and regional firms need to differentiate themselves to get noticed," added Rosenblatt, who said the merger also will bolster the firm's corporate finance practice and its international work in Canada and Israel.
The firms will consolidate their Boston offices at Burns & Levinson's headquarters at 125 Summer St. in early January. No staff positions are expected to be eliminated as a result of the merger.
''We do not envision loss of jobs at all," Rosenblatt said.
Rosenblatt and Robert D. Friedman, Perkins's managing partner, declined to disclose their firms' annual revenues or profits per partner.
Both men said they expect the new firm to benefit from the past decade's proliferation of large national firms -- many of which now have more than 1,000 lawyers -- as some big-firm clients seek out smaller, regional firms that offer lower rates and more contact with partners.
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com. 