After losing a bunch of practice leaders to other law firms this year, Atlanta’s Morris Manning & Martin is joining a larger national firm with plans to double its presence in the city.

Morris Manning, which peaked at around 180 lawyers after starting in Atlanta in 1976, is merging with Taft, a national law firm with more than 1,000 attorneys. The merger takes effect Dec. 31.

Once the firms have combined, Taft will have more than 1,200 lawyers in 25 offices across the country with projected combined revenues of more than $1 billion, the firms said.

Robert Hicks, the chairman and managing partner of Taft, said the combined firm will rapidly expand in Atlanta, where Morris Manning currently has around 80 attorneys. Slower growth is planned in Washington, D.C., where the other 25 or so Mor

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