Suburban factfile

The formal US/UK merger of long-time associates Faegre & Benson and City firm Hobson Audley has prompted pages and pages of press briefings on Faegre as a way of making up for the fact that rather than having offices in the likes of New York, Washington and San Francisco, Minneapolis-based Faegre has planted its flag in legal hotspots such as Boulder in Colorado and Des Moines in Iowa.

So we now know, for example, that the average commute time to work in Des Moines is 18 minutes, Boulder City is home to the only authentic handcrafted Persian teahouse in the western hemisphere, and Denver is the 20th largest city in the US by population but has the tenth largest downtown area in terms of office and retail space (just how interesting is that?).

There are also factsheets on its overseas offices - in 'ten facts to impress people in Frankfurt', number seven kicks off by explaining that 'the national language is German', while the invaluable sheet on London imparts the vital information that it is the capital of Britain.

On such cross-cultural understanding are great alliances born.