First international acquisition for new entrant digital law firm
Manchester-based digital law firm, arch.law, has announced its first international transaction with the acquisition of Australian-based Nexus Law Group, for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition will bring together more than 50 lawyers and advisors in the UK and Australia with a core focus on providing leading edge technology with high quality lawyers to deliver legal solutions differently for its clients.
The acquisition is being self-funded by arch.law via a purchase of shares.
Nexus Law Group has offices across five states in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Newcastle and was founded by principal Marcus McCarthy in 2014, who will be continuing in arch.law Australia as a portfolio member.
Andrew Leaitherland founded arch.law in 2021. The ex-CEO of DWF Group built the firm from 450 people with two offices in Manchester and Liverpool to more than 4,300 people across 33 offices worldwide.
Operating on a distributed law firm model arch.law had 35 lawyers and advisers prior to the Australian acquisition.
Mr Leaitherland said: “The acquisition of Nexus Law Group enables arch.law to embark on building an international and scalable platform enabling our clients to benefit from a high quality team of legal advisors combined with leading edge technology.
“There are many positive synergies and opportunities within the Australian market to drive the digital law firm model and we are looking forward to working with the highly skilled team at Nexus to deliver legal solutions differently to our clients.”
Marcus McCarthy said: “I could not be more pleased with this development, not only for our lawyers but for our clients who will benefit from the increased depth of service arch.law can provide.
“We operate an almost identical structure to arch.law and all our interactions prove a strong cultural alignment, which was important to our team in moving forward. I am very keen to assist the expansion of the arch.law business in Australia and continue what I believe is one of the most innovative and beneficial operating structures for quality lawyers to work together anywhere in the world.
“Together, both businesses now have a supercharged platform for growth in Australia and beyond, well into the future.”
While CEO of DWF Group, Mr Leaitherland had built the Australian business to more than 200 people in three years. He said: “I know the opportunities available in the APAC region and am looking forward to building another substantial digital law firm model in the southern hemisphere.”
