Below is the introduction of Barbarians at the Gate: The Invasion of Regional Legal Markets and How Mid-sized Firms Should Respond The full report is available on the ALM Intelligence website.
Large law firms have spent the past two decades expanding into new markets at a tremendous pace. Since 2001, the United States’ largest 250 law firms by attorney headcount, known as the NLJ 250, have nearly doubled their geographic coverage – adding more than 1,400 new offices across the globe. This process has fundamentally changed the legal market in two important ways. First, it has created a group of law firms with vast scale and geographic reach. Equally important is the impact that expansion has had on local law firms. Many regional legal markets have been transformed over the past decade. They have transitioned from localized markets, dominated by legacy firms, to highly competitive marketplaces, fully integrated into the global legal services market.
