Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
“legal consulting” rather than “engaging in the practice of law—often
a distinction without a practical difference); and (6) deep war chests.
How deep you ask? The Big Four generate combined annual revenues
of $120 billion; the 100 largest revenue generating law firms globally
produce a combined $89 billion. Put another way, Big Four revenues
are multiple times the size of the largest law firms. Translation: in an
era of free-agency, the Big Four are the New York Yankees and BigLaw
are the Oakland A’s.
E&Y’s Circumnavigation of Regulatory Barriers
But let’s return to the evidence suggesting that E&Y and the BigFour
are deadly serious about taking on—if not taking over—the $650 billion
a year global legal market. E&Y has recently been granted a Foreign
Practice License (“FLP”) in Singapore, enabling a foreign law
firm to establish a branch in Singapore and to practice foreign law
there. But how would this work in the case of Ernst & Young that is not
a law firm? It’s tricky and additional evidence of E&Y’s intent to extend
its reach into the legal vertical—and on a global basis. Follow the
steps: (1) two E&Y partners, one formerly the managing partner of the
Singapore office of a law firm there, the other E&Y’s General Counsel
for the Asia Pacific Region (based in Singapore), established an entity
called DA partners last year; (2) E&Y entered Singapore’s legal market
by making PK Wong & Associate, a local firm, part of its global network;
(3) DA partners used the Wong local presence to secure an FPL
license months later. The result: John Dick (the “D” in “DA Partners”)
was quoted in The Lawyer: “We view Singapore as a regional hub for
providing cross-border services to clients operating in the ASEAN (sic)
region.” Soaring rhetoric without substance? E&Y already has affiliated
law firms in Vietnam, Korea, a Chinese firm based in Shanghai,
as well as plans for Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. These are
countries where it already has in place well-established accounting
practices and physical presence, clients, technology, process and proj-
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