Withers Chairman Anthony Indaimo will resign with the firm in July, designating New York-based Ivan Sacks as his replacement.
The decision follows the breakdown of Withers and Speechly Bircham’s merger talks, which were negotiated for almost two months.
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Earlier in March, talks about the private client law firms merging began, as the combined outfit would have been on the brink of the top 20 UK firms by turnover.
However, it is believed that some Withers partners, who voted regarding the merger on 22 May, had proposed that the votes be delayed until 24 May, but this was rejected by the management. While votes from Speechly partners were in favour of the merger, Withers did not hit the 75% threshold needed from the votes.
In a joint statement the firms said: "Following detailed discussions between the management and partnerships of Withers and Speechly, both sides have now concluded that a merger would not be in the best interests of both firms and have agreed not to pursue this further."
Speechly said: "As a partnership, Speechly stresses consensus above all else and while a majority of partners were in favour of the merger proposal, reservations about certain important details meant that management did not have a clear mandate to continue discussions."
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By GlobalDataSpeechly senior partner, Michael Lingens, has set out plans for "significant team hire" after the merger talks have collapsed.
