Law firm Hogan Lovells is making a series of changes to its group structure and the leadership of its international management committee, which is responsible for setting and implementing the firm's strategic direction and business operations.

The committee is made up of the heads of the firm’s practice groups and administrative regions, plus clients and markets.

The firm’s five practice groups will reduced to three. Its corporate and finance practice groups will be combined to create a new corporate and finance practice made up of around 400 partners. Its global regulatory, and intellectual property, media and technology ( IPMT ) practice groups will form into a single global regulatory & IPMT group, made up of 230 partners.

Bringing corporate and finance together will eliminate a significant amount of overlap, particularly in the areas of capital markets, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and commercial work, while combining the global regulatory and IPMT groups will take advantages of synergies in areas like privacy and cybersecurity, pharmaceutical and technology patent litigation, and antitrust investigations,  says Miguel Zaldivar, the firm’s new chief executive officer ( CEO ).

The firm’s regions will also shift from five to three. The current Americas and D.C. regions will be combined, and a single Europe, Middle East, and Africa ( EMEA ) region will be created. The current Asia-Pacific and Middle East region will now focus on the emergent markets of Southeast Asia as well as the established economies of Australia, Greater China, and Japan.