Page 12 - Legal and Accounting Markets 1985 -2022
P. 12
Global Law and Accounting Practices and Markets
5. Unlike accounting, there are hundreds of other practice areas. It will take substantial time and resources
to develop these practices.
6. General counsel started their careers comes in Biglaw and law firms. It will take years to change this cultural
preference.
7. In terms of internal business operations, the legal and financial services departments are separate and
protected functions. This internal corporate barrier can actually limit the migration of legal services to
accounting.
8. Biglaw can hire at the same levels or higher as the Big Four. This is reflected by the starting income of
new attorneys in major markets.46
In the longer term, there is a Big Four threat to Biglaw at the marketing, administrative, and operations levels
concerning branding, social media, and operation efficiencies.
Size
Size can be measured by the number of lawyers, gross revenue, profit margin and number of offices. The
largest firm’s market share is essentially fixed at less than 0.5 percent of the global market.47 Doubling in size
will not significantly affect that percentage. As each grows, the competition will increase and additional costs
will be incurred. This is illustrated on the concentration chart as the largest firms remaining at the lowest
level.
The number of offices and the profit per lawyer are related. However, because the highlight firms are vereins
in which each member is financially independent, it is not possible to do a comparison. The firms in the largest
jurisdictions are likely to have the similar profit per lawyer as the non-vereins.
46id
47 List of largest law firms by revenue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue
10
5. Unlike accounting, there are hundreds of other practice areas. It will take substantial time and resources
to develop these practices.
6. General counsel started their careers comes in Biglaw and law firms. It will take years to change this cultural
preference.
7. In terms of internal business operations, the legal and financial services departments are separate and
protected functions. This internal corporate barrier can actually limit the migration of legal services to
accounting.
8. Biglaw can hire at the same levels or higher as the Big Four. This is reflected by the starting income of
new attorneys in major markets.46
In the longer term, there is a Big Four threat to Biglaw at the marketing, administrative, and operations levels
concerning branding, social media, and operation efficiencies.
Size
Size can be measured by the number of lawyers, gross revenue, profit margin and number of offices. The
largest firm’s market share is essentially fixed at less than 0.5 percent of the global market.47 Doubling in size
will not significantly affect that percentage. As each grows, the competition will increase and additional costs
will be incurred. This is illustrated on the concentration chart as the largest firms remaining at the lowest
level.
The number of offices and the profit per lawyer are related. However, because the highlight firms are vereins
in which each member is financially independent, it is not possible to do a comparison. The firms in the largest
jurisdictions are likely to have the similar profit per lawyer as the non-vereins.
46id
47 List of largest law firms by revenue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue
10
