Cox Hallett Wilkinson celebrated the first anniversary of its merger with Hollis and Company last Friday with both parties declaring the combination a success.

The anniversary comes with 12 members of Hollis and Company now fully entrenched in the firm's stately compound on Victoria Street bringing the grand total of the firm to 8 partners, 11 associates, 2 consultants and 37 support staff.

"We have been happier, the additional support within a law firm is always useful," managing partner David Cooper said. "It is not just 12 extra people on board. It has meant that you move from being a predominantly small practice to a slightly larger size where you have more depth and you can approach situations in more of a team manner and you really are that much better able to provide broad service to your clients."

It is hard to believe that the firms have been together for such a short time when Mr. Cooper and partner Wendell Hollis comfortably interrupt each other and expound on one another's comments like an old married couple.

"It is amazing how quickly the year has gone and that emphasises what a good fit it was," Mr. Cooper said.

Mr. Hollis starts to acknowledge some initial "getting to know you" growing pains, but quickly adds that after a year "we consider ourselves one homogenous entity".

He actually only founded Hollis and Company five years ago after he left Mello, Hollis, Jones and Martin ? a firm he also helped found ? to set up a law firm affiliated with the local office of global accounting group Ernst & Young (E&Y).

While informal merger discussions with CHW ? itself the product of a 1998 merger of local firms Hallett Whitney & Patton and Cox & Wilkinson ? date back almost two years, the final decision to merge only came last winter when a shift in corporate governance rules prompted E&Y's international governing body to tell its member firms to shave off their law practices.

"This option came up fairly quickly and we proceeded with that. We didn't have discussions with anyone else or consider anything else seriously," Mr. Hollis said adding that his primarily commercial firm brought with it a significant amount of commercial expertise and work. The merger has also been good for his firm on the litigation side.

"We didn't do any litigation work so they have been a great adjunct to us because we can provide them with litigation work that they can assist us with whereas before we would have had to outsource that," he said. "There were cases where putting A with B we got a product which was enhanced for both sides.

For instance, Cox Hallett Wilkinson have a very good airline practice whereas his firm had not done any of that, but had two clients who wanted that area of expertise.

"Our clients were able to provide the work and then Cox Hallett Wilkinson was able to provide the expertise and so together we put together two projects," Mr. Hollis said.

The merged firm has also benefited and grown on the real estate side and now boasts a large share of the property development work in Bermuda thanks in part to a bigger conveyance department.

The firm is also large enough to service the international community in most areas although there are no plans to forget about its "established local client base".

In fact Mr. Hollis sees Cox Hallett Wilkinson's real strength in the local arena declaring it as the Island's leading local law firm.

"It is really almost a question of emphasis," he said. "The two big firms, Appleby and Conyers like to show themselves as an international law firm and almost take a view that that is where their whole raison d'?tre is, where our emphasis is the other way around. We do provide a lot of international work, we have a lot of good international clients but our emphasis is far more on the local side than the international side."

Looking to the future, the partners do not discount the possibility of further growth if they are approached by an overseas firm however they are "not consciously out there looking to do that."

They boast that of the commercial firms theirs has the highest percentage of Bermudian lawyers with just 3 out of 20 being expatriates. They also boast that with four partners among the top 12 most senior lawyers in the country, the firm has behind it a high degree of expertise and seniority.

However they are constantly on the lookout for more corporate lawyers to keep up with growing local and international corporate work. The merger has also stretched to their current physical plant to its seams so, in conjunction with the landlord of the building and firm founder Bill Cox, they are planning a significant expansion of their compound. Another wing is to be added that will be sympathetic to the existing buildings.