Chattanooga based Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel has launched Meritas with approximately 200 other business law firms.  Based on 10 years of experience under the name Commercial Law Affiliates, Meritas is a closely integrated group of full-service law firms that will provide business clients with worldwide access to comprehensive legal services.

“As more companies do business worldwide, both large and small companies alike are finding they need coordinated, trustworthy global legal services,” said Kirk Snouffer, Managing Partner of Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel,  “It used to be that the only options for companies were to build up their own in-house legal department, use large national firms, or develop personal networks of preferred legal providers.  But the big national or international firms don’t operate everywhere, the quality can be very uneven and the fees can be excessive.  Through Meritas’ legal service model, Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel can provide clients with coordinated, cost-effective services to meet their legal needs using law firms that adhere to the same high quality standards.” 

“Meritas is the next evolution in providing clients the very highest quality of legal services, with the addition of new features that aren’t available from other sources,” said George Cadman, Meritas board chair, and partner of Boughton Peterson Yang Anderson in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 

Meritas offers clients accountable, coordinated service through:

• comprehensive evaluation records, with up to 10 years of client satisfaction and quality service data.  Each referring firm or client is surveyed for their satisfaction, providing tangible evidence of high performance.
• an online database of Meritas attorneys, searchable by legal skill and industry expertise.  The database, which currently highlights U.S. member firms, will be expanded to include Meritas’ 5,000 attorneys worldwide, with Canada and Europe online in the coming months. 
• common technology platforms, enabling clients to benefit from multijurisdictional client management teams, and cross border practice groups, and
• centralized billing – with standard rates that are considerably more competitive than larger firms.

Membership in Meritas is by invitation only, with members required to adhere to rigorous quality standards set by clients, and a stringent code of ethics.  Member firms, which are ranked in the top 10 in most cities, also must participate in common governance and are subject to an annual recertification process.

For clients, Meritas’ extensive due diligence process for prospective members and stringent membership requirements ensure easy access to pre-screened, full-service and specialized legal expertise worldwide.

“As Meritas’ Chattanooga firm, Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel is the gateway to Meritas’ worldwide services, from representing client interests in Austin to Australia, providing intellectual property counsel in Moscow to Malaysia, and tapping into legal specialists from Tennessee to Turkey,” said Snouffer  “And we can offer our clients the comfort of knowing that their legal work will be handled reliably and consistently – whether that’s in their backyard or around the world.”

Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, P.C. is a Chattanooga-based firm with more than 45 attorneys who serve as counsel for local, regional, and national businesses, financial institutions, local governments and nonprofit organizations. The firm practices in areas including intellectual property, health care, labor and employment, business planning, taxation, estate preservation and all aspects of litigation.