I have just returned to the US from London, where I met with my friend ‘Dave’ from the legal department of ‘GlobalBank’, which operates in Europe, North America, and Asia. In 2007, GlobalBank spent around £500m on legal costs, making it one of the ten biggest clients in the world. In 2009, no one really knows the exact figures, but spending will be more like £175m-£200m, notwithstanding a bump in restructuring, layoffs, and investigations. According to Dave, “we have been through four rounds of layoffs so far. In addition to half of my team and several of my peers, my boss, my boss’s boss and boss’s boss’s boss all have been let go. We expect the recession to last through all of 2009 and most of 2010, but then hopefully things will start to get better.”
Let me offer my own 2011 scenario in the simplest possible terms.
