Law firms Speechly Bircham and Charles Russell are to merge.

Charles Russell Speechlys will open for business on 1 November.

The merger will create a new UK ‘top 30’ private wealth and business law firm with 170 partners, a total of 500 lawyers and combined income of £135m.

It will have a strong foothold in the charity sector too. In the Charity Legal Survey published by Charity Finance this month, Charles Russell ranked sixth-equal (with Bircham Dyson Bell) in terms of the number of Top-350 charities that use the firm as their legal adviser.

Speechly Bircham was among 153 firms that were retained by one or two large charities.

The two firms had announced earlier this year that preliminary merger talks were under way, after exploratory merger discussions between Speechly Bircham and Withers were called off after a partner vote in May 2013.

Consolidation among law firms operating in the charity market has accelerated recently.  In February last year DWF acquired most of the assets of Cobbetts from administrators; in May last year Bond Pearce merged with Dickinson Dees; in June 2013 Harrison Clark joined up with Rickerbys.

In May this year Wragge & Co merged with Lawrence Graham and Dundas and Wilson joined CMS; Blake Lapthorne merged with Morgan Cole this month.