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The Future of Global Law...

on January 04, 2010

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All you need to know....

(Thanks to Peter D. Lederer)

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The Accountants Are Really Coming...this time....

(thanks to giant bomb.com) I'm sure PwC, EY, KPMG, and Deloitte would like to be thought of the same way as these bands, but...dream on. Why are they there? A press release from Karl Chapman popped into my overstuffed mailbox saying Riverview Law has just been acquired by EY . Despite the hype of press releases, this is a significant move in the legal services market. At bottom it shows two things: NewLaw is coming of age and is now attractive to others; the accountants, particularly the Big Four, are serious about conquering the legal services market. Law firms should be worried because I believe they are on borrowed time. A few years ago I sat in a meeting at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in London discussing how and if accountants should be given regulatory powers in legal services. The accountants said they only wanted powers for probate. They declared they wanted no other regulatory authority. Really? I thought to myself. Surely no one believes that. The

The Rise of Boutiques?

(Thanks to Coolhunting ) Flexibility and mobility are two necessary attributes to dealing with markets in flux. As we have seen with the struggles of the behemoth law firms over the last year or so, restructuring is painful, slow and very unwelcome. Small firms, however, may have the advantage because they can reconfigure themselves with relatively little effort. Dan Harris of China Law Blog directed my attention to an article in the Los Angeles Times "The Big Opportunities in the Legal Profession Are at Small Firms". Lawyers have been able to reinvent themselves in imaginative ways. Divorce lawyers transform into bankruptcy lawyers. It seems that younger lawyers are finding small firms attractive after Big Law. Niche areas of law are ripe for development and boutiques--whether traditional law firms or alternative business structures--are ideal candidates for delivering services to clients quickly and personally and much cheaper than the large law firms. Even the ABA

Pssst! Wanna Buy a Law Firm?

Bruce MacEwen has an insightful post on external investment into law firms, in which he puts the scale of the proposed Clementi reforms on a par with Big Bang in the 1980s . He's right. Big Bang led to the disappearance of many British finance household names as the American banks came over and bought them up. Now the competition is a hotter because in addition to investment banks we've got private equity funds and hedge funds and various derivatives' specialists. MacEwen compares law firms to utilities, good, steady income streams. Big Bank took everyone by surprise (it was only meant to be a minor change in the Stock Exchange rulebook). And the Brits weren't prepared for the onslaught. They are about to do it again. Let's face it: law firms are populated by intelligent people but are they worldly-wise? No. Once they take the banks' shilling--and they will despite what they say--law firms are in for a big shock. Over time I see the prospect of the following ha

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