Law firms are prone to merging and rearranging themselves into strings of surnames that often rival the names of the authors of scientific journal articles in length. Every so often, firms such as “Chaulker, Green and Rowe” transmogrify into “McInnes Cooper” or “Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales” will save on printing costs by dropping the last two names and becoming “Stew-Mac” (no fries with that).
It happens. Lawyers are great lovers of organisation and rearranging themselves seems to be a logical spin-off thereof. I’m rarely surprised by changes in firm names these days; I just have a hard time keeping track of who is in cahoots with whom.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.
My favourite, my new all-time favourite firm name, has just been created. An Atlantic Canadian firm now ranks way above the mythical and admirable “Dewey Cheatem and Howe” in my humble opinion, even the more so because of its veracity.
“Cox Hanson O’Reilly Matheson” and “Patterson Palmer” have now joined forces.
Yes sir. Now think. If you were male, fifteen years old and were asked to bawdily pick two names out of those titles, one from each of the feeder firms, to form a new firm, what would you pick?
Yep. They did it. “Cox & Palmer” it is….. (the ampersand really doesn’t dull the effect, to my mind).
Ah, I love lawyers. Once again, they affirm my faith that a law degree is years of “hard” study. Pardon me while I subdue my snickering husband……
Raising the Bar Strength & Conditioning 
*snicker* *whoop* *giggle*
…nope, still speechless!
true story – In the early 70’s I worked as a telephone operator in Mt.Kisco, NY which fancied itself as a tony suburb of Manhattan. There was a law firm called Rich, Shatz & Duncan whose partners always made to person to person calls which required that the operator announce them. One day I said
” I have a long distance call for Mr. Jones from Mr. Rich of Rats, Shits & Duncan..” It must have happened before because no comment was made. Me and the two operators flanking me had to take an extended bathroom break for excess mirth.
Truth is still stranger than fiction!
Having seen the mind of one of these creatures at some of his most libidinal moments, I can testify that lawyers really do look at the world through strange eyes; fascinating and wonderful, but strange. BTW I too love lawyers…..at least the ones I know….or trust….or….
You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Mom; those moments you’ve seen were nowhere near his most libidinal. Take my word for it that you don’t want to know any more than that.
I thought Patterson, Matheson,O’Reilly Hanson Palmer (&) Cox would let them all have a hand in it!
David
Can the receptionist answer the phone without whooping with laughter each time? This is priceless. Chuckle.
I can testify that my law degree WAS actually a lot of hard work, but when a firm chooses a name like that, it really makes you wonder about lawyers, doesn’t it? lol The sad thing is, the Powers That Be probably didn’t do any focus testing, or even talk to their teenage sons about the name change until the signs and letterhead were all paid for. Scary business sense!
Actually, SkylarKD, I suspect (knowing lawyers as I do) that this name was arrived at deliberately. Most of the older male lawyers that run these firms are, in fact, still fourteen years old at…. heart.
I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.
It is funny – I actually work at the “Cox & Palmer” (formerly Patterson Palmer) and it takes all of our effort not to die of laughter every time we answer the phones. The best part is that they had focus groups upon focus groups to come up with a new name and everyone said just not “Cox Palmer” or vise versa – so they hire a marketing company and pay them thousands of dollars to put in the ampersand. We think our new slogan should be “a full service law firm” hahahaha – what do you think?
Awright, I’ve suppressed this long enough. “Hanson Cox” would be much, much worse.