the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand in September 2002. 2005 to 2010 In July 2004, UK-based law firm DLA LLP and Baltimore-based law firm Piper Rudnick announced their intention to merge on 1 January 2005. DLA had been the result of a mid-1990s merger between three UK firms, Dibb Lupton Broomhead, Alsop Stevens, and Wilkinson Kimbers. Piper Rudnick agreed to merge with San Diego-based law firm Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP in October 2004, forming a firm with around 1,300 lawyers and 20 offices across the United States. In December 2004, DLA LLP, Gray Cary and Piper Rudnick, the latter two of which had yet to complete their merger, announced that the partners of each firm had approved a three-way merger. The merger became effective on 1 January 2005 and the new firm was named DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary. The merger was structured in the form of two limited liability partnerships, DLA Piper International LLP, and DLA Piper US LLP (since renamed to DLA Piper LLP (US)), which share a single management board but are not financially integrated. In July 2005, DLA Piper acquired EY Law's 87 lawyer operation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, including offices in Moscow and St Petersburg. In December 2005 DLA Piper opened an office in Beijing, having recruited a team of lawyers from the Beijing office of Coudert Brothers. In January 2006, DLA Piper opened its first office in the Middle East, in Dubai. The firm has since opened offices in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Doha, Kuwait City, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh and Jeddah. On 1 September 2006, the firm shortened its name to DLA Piper. DLA Piper merged with its Norway-based alliance firm DLA Nordic in the same month, and formed an alliance with the Australia-based law firm Phillips Fox in November 2006, with Phillips Fox rebranding as DLA Phillips Fox at that time. DLA Piper opened offices in Munich, Germany and Warsaw, Poland in 2007. 2010 to present In February 2010, DLA Piper formed an alliance with the Turkish law firm Yüksel Karkın Küçük until 2014. In March 2010 DLA Piper formed an alliance with the Brazil-based law firm Campos Mello Advogados. In January 2011, DLA Piper and DLA Phillips Fox announced their intention to merge. The merger was approved by partners of both firms in February and was completed on 1 May, when DLA Phillips