One of North Carolina's largest law firms is merging with a national giant, the firms announced Wednesday.

Helms Mulliss & Wicker, which has more than 145 lawyers in Charlotte, Raleigh and Wilmington, is combining with McGuireWoods, a Richmond, Va.-based firm with 750 attorneys worldwide that opened in Charlotte in 1998.

When the merger takes effect March 31, the combined firm will be known as McGuireWoods and will have about 160 lawyers in Charlotte.

The merger is a result of clients' changing needs, McGuireWoods Chairman Richard Cullen said in a press release.

"We need to match our capabilities and geographic reach to meet those needs," he said.

Helms Mulliss' chairman, Peter J. Covington, will become vice chairman of McGuireWoods. Scott Vaughn, Helms Mulliss' finance group leader, will become managing partner of McGuireWoods' Charlotte office.

B. Lawrence Theis has been elected chairman of the executive committee at Denver law firm Holme Roberts & Owen LLP, succeeding Robert Bach.

Theis is a partner with HRO's litigation practice group. He founded the litigation firm of Musgrave & Theis, which merged with HRO in 2006. He is a former state antitrust prosecutor.

Bach had been the firm's executive committee chairman for eight years, HRO (hro.com) said in a statement Tuesday. Bach will return to full-time law practice.

Theis had been HRO's general counsel. Mashenka Lundberg will assume that post.

HRO, founded in 1898, is Denver's second-largest locally based law firm, according to the Denver Business Journal's Book of Lists. The firm says it has more than 260 attorneys in three Colorado officers as well as in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, London and Munich.

Stoll Stoll Berne Lokting & Shlachter PC is shortening its firm name to Stoll Berne in recognition of senior partners Robert Stoll and Gary Berne.

"It's the same firm, but a simpler name," said Keith Ketterling, managing shareholder. "David Lokting and Rob Shlachter are, and will continue to be, a huge part of the heart and soul of our firm. They're not going anywhere."

Founded 30 years ago, the Portland firm specializes in complex business litigation and commercial real estate/business transactions. The firm has 10 partners and nine associates.

Tactix Real Estate Advisors kicked off the year picking up two additional major law firms in the market seeking space, continuing its dominance representing the local legal sector in lease deals.

The Radnor-based boutique brokerage is now representing an 80,000-square-foot Center City firm that it can't disclose the name of -- yet -- and Richards Layton & Finger, a Wilmington-based law firm that leases roughly 125,000 square feet at the Chase building. Tactix, which solely represents tenants, is also running around with Saul Ewing, which is in 110,000 square feet in Centre Square, which is has occupied for the past 30 years, and Fox Rothschild, which leases 90,000 square feet at 2000 Market St. Saul Ewing's lease expires in May 2010 and Fox Rothschild's at the end of next year.

In all, Tactix has wrapped up leases in its 10 years on 35 law firms. For example, in December it closed on Buchanan Ingersoll's 80,000-square-foot lease at Two Liberty Place, Hamilton Lane at One Belmont Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, and numerous deals for Fox Rothschild throughout the region and across the country. It also helped Dechert and Woodcock Washburn secure the first leases at Cira Centre in 2004, kicking off construction of the new tower.

"I think we understand law firms because a lot of us were lawyers," said Glenn Blumenfeld, who left Dechert in late 2002 to become a partner at Tactix. Judd Wambold, who formed Tactix in 1997 with Sal Ambrosio, was also an attorney at Dechert. Many of its hires have also been lawyers who left area law firms.