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Our latest ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ report looks into legal services expansion, and burgeoning competition from the ‘Big Four’ accounting / consultancy firms. We explore in depth how serious a threat this poses to traditional law firms – and the opportunities it presents to in-house legal teams. We speak to senior lawyers from Deloitte, EY, PwC and KPMG, gaining unique insights into how their strategy is evolving, and how this will impact the market for legal services to big businesses and organisations.

After 25 years working to establish legal services as part of their portfolio of offers to large companies and organisations, the Big Four have changed their strategy for breaking into this market. And judging by the growth of revenues from UK legal practices, they’re meeting with considerable success.

In our report, we focus on how by integrating legal services into their wider professional service offerings globally, the Big Four have created significant disruption in the market. Their focus is on providing their clients with a premium legal service offering that isn’t just advice, but part of an end-to-end solution from one well-known, trusted partner organisation.

The legal industry has been slow to adapt to changes in processing and managing cases, with much of the market, particularly in-house lawyers, focusing on day-to-day priorities.

In-house legal departments have concentrated on delivering added value to the business and mitigating risk for their employers. But it’s now more important than ever for in-house lawyers to adapt and harness new approaches, tools and technologies to stay ahead of the game and continue visibly adding value.

In Are the Big Four reshaping the future of legal services?, Anup Kollanethu of EY considers the view of general counsel - exploring how to maintain a rewarding and effective balance: retaining complex, strategic, high value work, while still dealing efficiently with day-to-day demands.

Emily Foges at Deloitte explains how the Big Four are focusing on new technology and growing their own in-house legal teams to support their rapid expansion. There’s a new acceptance that in-house lawyers should adapt and use a different approach to business support functions - a trend rapidly becoming the norm for the Big Four themselves, who are bringing more business in-house, and outsourcing far less.

There’s also been a big shift in the kind of legal work being outsourced. For instance, general counsel now put more focus on keeping complex work in-house, whilst outsourcing high-volume, low value work that can be time consuming. This leaves room for in-house lawyers to focus on higher value, more fulfilling work where they can demonstrate the value of their expertise.

The top line - four Big Four insights in a nutshell

• Companies are becoming more demanding. They now ‘require solutions, not just advice’. The combination of new technology, improved processes and efficient outsourcing of high-volume work has contributed hugely to the very significant increase in legal services revenues that PwC Legal has seen over the last five years.

   

• Technology is becoming ever more important. In-house legal teams need to re-engineer their operating models to create scalable technology that can support the needs of their internal clients. Focusing on better technology to support legal practice and providing efficient service for clients is just as relevant for in-house lawyers and traditional law firms, as for the Big Four and other ALSPs. As demand grows for faster, better solutions, the whole industry must grow with it.

   

• Law is not the main priority for the Big Four. It’s an opportunity to expand their reach and increase their purchase within client organisations. But in the context of their wider business, it’s small beer. ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ research identifies for instance, that at PwC, legal professionals make up only 1% of its total global workforce.

   

• But… despite having taken 25 years to establish themselves as credible players in the legal services market, they’re now growing rapidly. The number of legal fee earners employed by the Big Four has been gradually increasing and will continue to rise.

In-house legal professionals must evolve to provide solutions, not just advice, through new technology and the judicious management of outsourcing.

Read the full report to gain a thorough understanding of the disruption the Big Four are causing in the legal services market, how to overcome the challenges this disruption brings, and exploit the opportunities it presents.