You could say Peter Bubenzer has made his mark on leading local law firm Appleby Spurling & Kempe ? the company he became managing partner of in April, 2002. Two years after taking up the reins from outgoing managing partner Dianna Kempe, Mr. Bubenzer has effectively negotiated the law firm's merger with Caymans-based Hunter & Hunter. It is a landmark development for the Island's legal services sector, with it being the first time a Bermuda firm has joined forces with an outside company.

Mr. Bubenzer said the company ? which will see its name stripped of Kempe after 55 years and changed to Appleby Spurling Hunter ? would not be putting up a sign bearing its new name until the 'combination' was made official on April 1. But work is already under way on how the combined law firms will operate.

"Right now we are in the planning process for the unrolling of the new structure. I have already been to the Caymans with a group of my colleagues and other AS&K staff are going separately as we seek to coordinate the description of our practice groups.

"We are looking at the detail now. How we are going to describe each organisation, how we are going to organise it so we can coordinate effectively for the benefit of clients and work on precedents and marketing ? all of which has taken several months to get organised."

Last year the company discontinued its paralegal programme, resulting in six redundancies, but Mr. Bubenzer said there were to be no job cuts being made as a result of its joining with Hunter & Hunter.

"If anything we may need extra resources to cope with the enlarged organisation," he said.

This big step for the firm, came after a conversation Mr. Bubenzer had more than six months ago with senior management at Hunter & Hunter, resulting in the two firms realising they could be more together, than apart.

We discussed our mutual interest in becoming, in our respective firms, the leading suppliers of offshore legal services. What that implied, for each of us, was a vision of having a substantial presence in each of our offshore centres (Bermuda and the Caymans)."

In the end a plan was hatched ? Mr. Bubenzer said it was not technically a merger, but a combining of the two firms ? whereby each would continue with their respective partners but at the same time allowing for coordinated legal and associated services, including trust and corporate administration and management.

Mr. Bubenzer said the two firms had discussed how each could have tried to go about organically establishing themselves in AS&K's case in the Caymans, and for Hunter & Hunter, in Bermuda. But said it became clear that there could be advantages in effecting a transaction together that would allow them to combine their organisations.

"This meant we could have the strengths of a major organisation immediately."

Although AS&K is significantly larger than Hunter & Hunter, Mr. Bubenzer said his firm had much to gain from the deal as it would greatly expand its presence in the Cayman Islands. For one, the company stands to make significant inroads in the area of legal services to the mutual funds and structured finance industry, with the Cayman's legal firms being recognised for their expertise in these areas.

At the same time he said there could be more business coming to Bermuda as well with Cayman fund groups possibly looking to Bermuda for insurance services.

"We have been attempting to create a presence in the Caymans for some time, and we have never made it a secret that our desire was to establish it as a part of this firm as opposed to having an association or a referral relationship. In our experience, and in looking at the experience of others, it has been made quite clear that this way is not effective. In an association or referral, none of the members of the organisation are as committed to marketing and support of each other.

"We both thought it was essential to create a structure that allowed us to operate together, if we were to achieve the real potential that was latent in the two firms," Mr. Bubenzer said.

The sale last month of the Bank of Bermuda to HSBC, and Government's stated intent in recent years to open up the Island's financial services sector, could also spell opportunity for the Island's legal sector. Mr. Bubenzer said the firm already had lawyers on staff who specialised in financial services law but the firm is looking at "gearing up" that division to take advantage of what could become a burgeoning sector.

Mr. Bubenzer, who is set to become managing partner of the combined firm with more than 400 staff throughout offices here, in the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong and London, said he would continue to be based in Bermuda.

Although business would be "going back and forth" between Bermuda and the Caymans, Mr. Bubenzer said he did not foresee having to visit the Caymans office more than once or twice a year. A lawyer for two decades now, Mr. Bubenzer joined AS&K in 1980 after studying at Exeter University and qualifying as a lawyer in England in 1979.

Although he has always worked from Bermuda, Mr. Bubenzer said he had been able to spend limited time in the firm's global offices including in London and Hong Kong.

But working in Bermuda was not always what Mr. Bubenzer had in mind.

"I had visions of working in Europe after I finished my legal studies. I am half Bermudian and half German and went to Germany after I qualified. But as I like to put it now, I was a bit ahead of my time. That's putting it nicely. In reality I simply didn't find anybody who was willing to employ me at that time. I then returned to Bermuda in 1980 and joined Appleby Spurling & Kempe. I joined as a litigator and I was in that department for about 18 months. I then moved into the corporate department and have been in that department ever since. I became a partner in 1986, head of the company department in 1993 and managing partner in April 2002."

Despite not having fulfilled his dream of a career in Europe, Mr. Bubenzer may have the last laugh at not being hired by a German firm as a fledgling lawyer. On top of his responsibilities as managing partner at AS&K, Mr. Bubenzer is also the honorary German counsel for the Island. Mr. Bubenzer is both Bermudian and German. His mother, a Bermudian, went to Britain in 1942 to join wartime volunteer corps the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and there met his father, a German prisoner of war. Mr. Bubenzer said his father had been captured by the Americans in the south of France and shipped to the UK for what was intended to be a return to Germany. But as fate would have it, his parents met while his father was still a prisoner of war.

"A romance struck up and they were married after the war," Mr. Bubenzer said.

Mr. Bubenzer is married to Lisa Marshall, a partner at Conyers Dill & Pearman.