Ride the Lightning

PricewaterhouseCoopers Announces Opening of US Law Firm

October 10, 2017

As the American Bar Association Journal reported last month, the Big Four accounting firms have legal divisions operating overseas that are on a par with the largest law firms in the world according to a report by ALM intelligence. Not long after that report was issued, PricewaterhouseCoopers announced that it would open a law firm in Washington, D.C. In the US, almost all jurisdictions have ethics rules that bar nonlawyer ownership and management of law firms, along with fee-sharing with non-lawyers. DC does not ban multidisciplinary practices owned by nonlawyers.

Law firm leaders are aware of the Big Four threat. 66% of partners surveyed said they were concerned about alternative legal service providers and accounting firms and 64% said accounting firms moving into the legal vertical was a bigger threat than the expansion of in-house legal departments, e-discovery vendors and legal process outsourcing companies.

The report notes that the Sarbanes-Oxley law, passed after the collapse of Enron in 2001, prevents auditing firms from providing a range of core legal services in the United States. But regulators allow accounting firms to offer nonauditing services, including legal services, to companies for which they don't serve as auditors, the ALM report says.

A chilling wind may be blowing soon – I think the law firm leaders justifiably feel a frisson of fear.

E-mail: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
https://www.senseient.com
https://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson
https://amazon.com/author/sharonnelson