Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
Put another way, disaggregation has greatly pared down the number of
tasks that require—or are perceived to require—a lawyer performing
them in a law firm structure.
The BigFour cannot (yet) set up legal shop as a law firm in the US
(though they could certainly establish affiliate US firms connected to
their UK and Asian bases) because of the current regulatory scheme.
But that does not mean that they cannot—and do not—have robust legal
consultancy practices in the States. And consider this: if you were
to compare the practice areas those consultancy practices engage in
and hold them up side-by-side to AmLaw 100 firms, you would be
hard-pressed to tell the difference. What is the difference? It is often
nothing more than: (1) a disclaimer that the consultancy is “not engaged
in the practice of law”; and (2) risk is retained in both instances
(though not emanating from “legal practice), but in the event of liability,
the claim against the consultancy would be covered by an errors
and omissions rather than a legal malpractice policy. This means that:
(1) in a functional sense, the BigFour already have robust “legal consulting
practices” in the US, even if they do not deliver those “legal”
services in the guise of a law firm; and (2) it will be a virtually seamless
transition for the BigFour into the full-blown practice of law once US
regulators wake up to realize that the rest of the world’s legal market is
moving in another direction.
Are Semantics Creating a False Sense of Security for Law Firms?
The BigFour have already made deep, broad, and economically significant
inroads into the global legal market. And that includes the US
where, as has been noted, for regulatory reasons, it is labeled as “consulting”
rather than “the practice of law.” This begs the question: is
it any longer relevant to use “engaging in the practice of law” as the
Maginot line to describe the delivery of legal services? And is it useful—as
law firm lawyers do-- to segregate legal issues from broader
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