Jonathan Selvadoray (Founder, Zaven) joined this live session to unpack what law firm mergers really mean for clients as consolidation accelerates across major legal markets—covering the immediate risk checks, the likely impact on client relationships, and the commercial realities that often sit behind the press release.

The Big Idea

Selvadoray’s central point was blunt: mergers are typically firm-led, not client-led. Economics and scale drive the strategy, while clients often hear the news via rumours or the media, only later receiving a “benefits and synergies” narrative.

What Changes for Clients (and What to Check Immediately)

Mergers can be disruptive for legal teams that rely on stability, responsiveness, and predictable billing. Selvadoray suggested clients run a clear checklist as soon as a merger is announced:

• Conflict risk: if the merged firm now acts for competitors, clients should expect direct, transparent communication about how conflicts will be managed and what boundaries will apply.
• Who is staying: partner departures and redundancy waves can follow—immediately or months later—creating continuity risk for GCs.
• Service levels: clients should ask whether they’ll become a “smaller fish in a bigger pond”, and whether quality and responsiveness will hold.
• Rates: the obvious but often unspoken reality—rates rarely go down post-merger.

His conclusion: it is entirely legitimate for GCs to reassess the relationship, test alternatives, and rework their panel following a merger.

Panels: Consolidating, or Moving Away Altogether?

A particularly interesting thread was the split between the traditional narrative (“clients want fewer firms”) and a counter-movement Selvadoray is hearing: some GCs are moving away from panels altogether, selecting firms matter-by-matter rather than committing to a fixed roster.

That flexibility can be attractive—especially where legal work is perceived as repeatable or commoditised—though it raises the question of when deep client knowledge is non-negotiable for high-stakes advice

Technology: Integration Friction Becomes a Client Issue

Clients working with multiple law firms are already dealing with different AI tools and workflows, and integration is time-consuming and expensive. Mergers can compound this if firms combine incompatible systems.

Selvadoray added that true integration remains limited today because of confidentiality and data-sharing constraints, even if the market may shift over time.

Private Equity and The “Platform” Model

On private equity investment in law firms, Selvadoray saw it as mainly a mid-market story: smaller firms may need capital to fund tech investment and remain competitive, while the biggest firms already have the cash to invest without outside money.

The Relationship Playbook for Law Firms

Selvadoray’s advice was straightforward: be proactive and transparent as early as legally possible. Waiting until the press release can be too late, because the client may already be diverting work to test alternatives.

Pricing and Value: Don’t Assume Scale Justifies a Premium

A recurring client question is: What do I actually get for higher fees? If a merger doesn’t create clear added value for a specific client, the expectation is that billing should at least stay stable, and any upward pressure needs a justification.

Selvadoray pointed to alternatives that shift focus away from hourly rates, including alternative fee arrangements (particularly fixed fees), backed by smarter resourcing (nearshoring/offshoring), technology, and disaggregation.

The Future Partner Skillset: Legal Expertise Plus Logistics

A sharp takeaway was Selvadoray’s view that, in complex cross-border work, differentiation increasingly comes from logistics: coordinating workflows, managing multi-jurisdiction delivery, and keeping transactions moving—more than from “heroic” legal arguments.

Why Zaven Exists

Selvadoray closed the conversation by linking it back to procurement realities. Having seen large discrepancies in pricing even among peer firms, he argued that creating healthy competitive tension helps clients keep spending honestly, especially as procurement becomes more common in legal buying (including within investment funds).

He built Zaven to plug this gap.