By Louis Goss
Major corporations are snubbing traditional law firms in increasingly going to consultancies and accounting firms for legal advice, according to new research from Thomson Reuters.
The Big Four accounting firms – PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte – are driving growth in the alternative legal services provider (ASLP) sector, as UK corporates increasingly turn to them for advice.
Having first entered the legal market in the 1990s, the UK’s major accounting firms have found a significant niche in offering their clients integrated legal services
Since 2015, the Big Four in particular have captured an increasingly large share of the UK legal sector through large scale efforts to bolster their legal offerings.
Major UK corporates are now progressively going to the Big Four for legal services relating to tax and corporate finance functions, the research shows.
At the same time, a higher proportion of major UK companies are currently planning to up their spending on legal services than at any other point in the past five years.
Lucinda Case, head of Legal Professionals Europe for Thomson Reuters said: “As we go into a period of economic uncertainty, with rising interest rates and inflation, UK corporate demand for legal services remains robust.”
“What’s unusual about this year’s data is that such a large number of UK corporates are planning to increase both their spending on international legal work as well as their spend on UK legal work.”
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