Houston and Dallas firm Locke Liddell Sapp is planning to merge with the smaller Chicago-based Lord, Bissell Brook, forming a firm with about 700 lawyers nationwide.
The deal to form the newly-named Locke Lord Bissell Liddell must be approved by the partners of both firms in mid-July. A preliminary agreement was signed this week.

Julie Gilbert, a spokeswoman for Locke Liddell, said her firm has a strong Texas and regional practice and Lord Bissell has a national reputation and both will benefit from the merger.
Jerry Clements, the Austin-based managing partner of Locke Liddell, will chair the new firm. A location for the merged firm's headquarters has not yet been determined but Austin is a possibility.

Locke Liddell, best known recently as the pre- and post-White House home to ex-White House counsel Harriet Miers, has 399 lawyers. The Chicago firm has nearly 300 lawyers. Locke Liddell has a corporate law strength and Lord Bissell has a litigation emphasis.

"This gives Locke Liddell the national footprint we've been wanting to even better serve our clients," Gilbert said.
The only city where both firms now have offices is Washington, D.C.

Gilbert said those offices will be merged.
Locke Liddell's other offices are in Houston, Dallas, Austin and New Orleans. Lord Bissell's other offices are in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento and London.

Locke Liddell was formed in 1999 in a merger between Houston-based Liddell, Zivley, Hill LaBoon and Dallas-Based Locke Purnell Rain Harrel.
Among those firms with a Houston headquarters, Locke Liddell has the sixth-highest number of locally-based attorneys.
Once the merger goes through, the new firms' 700 total lawyer count still would put it behind Houston's big three firms.

Fulbright Jaworksi has a total of 976 lawyers firm-wide, Vinson Elkins 743 attorneys and Baker Botts 741 lawyers.