For years, the Swiss verein has been Biglaw’s favorite legal fiction, a way for global firms to say they’re one happy family while keeping the finances carefully separated. Now one of the biggest names in the game is preparing to change that.
As noted by the American Lawyer, DLA Piper — a firm that brought in $4,239,832,000 gross revenue in 2024, putting it at No. 3 on the Am Law 100 — is planning to abandon the verein structure that has long governed its international operations and move “towards greater financial integration.” The shift would mark a significant structural change for one of the world’s largest law firms and could signal broader changes in how global firms organize themselves.
If you’re wondering what the big deal is, here’s the short version: under a Swiss verein, firms operate under one brand but keep their finances separate. Offices or regions can technically “merge” while maintaining independent profit pools, liabilities, and partnerships — a structure that made it much easier for firms to grow rapidly across borders without forcing partners to share profits with less profitable regions.
Closer financial integration changes that equation. It aligns incentives, encourages cross-border collaboration, and, at least in theory, pushes the firm closer to operating as a genuinely integrated global partnership rather than a loose federation of offices. It’s not just the firm’s finances that are coming together. Am Law has additional details:
Ryan and Severs will jointly outline plans for the new structure of the firm to partners later today, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
The source added that the changes will include the implementation of a new global governance structure with a unified global leadership team. It is expected to include a new global holding structure that will sit above the existing U.S. and International LLPs. This would include a shared financial pool for bonuses, hiring and investments.
The current CEOs will retain their leadership roles with Ryan serving as global chair and co-CEO, and Severs as global co-CEO.
For DLA Piper, this shift suggests leadership believes the benefits of deeper integration now outweigh the risks. In other words, one of the world’s largest law firms is betting that Biglaw’s future looks less like a network and more like a true global partnership. If the experiment works, don’t be surprised if other verein-structured giants start asking themselves the same question: why pretend to be one firm when you could actually become one?
DLA to Move Away From Verein Structure and Pivots Towards Financial Integration [American Lawyer]
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
