This week’s analysis asks whether the close relationship between law firms and banks will be damaged by a string of tougher panel reviews since the crunch. But in many respects, it’s an academic debate. Law firms in the UK have over the last 20 years so wholeheartedly structured their businesses around the needs of such clients that they have very little realistic option to break from the finance houses which helped fuel the profession’s growth.
The UK is something of an outlier in this regard. Sure, banks are important clients in most halfway developed markets, but I would argue that there is no comparable jurisdiction where they have anything like as much legal clout as in the UK. The ‘IBM factor’ when discussed with regard to legal services in this country has always been misleading – it’s really code for the select band of law firms that find favour with banks come the important deal.
