One of the more fascinating keynotes at this week’s ILTA virtual conference was a panel discussion among three representatives of the big four accounting firms: Peter Krakaur, Managing Director of EY Law, Mark Ross, Principal, Deloitte, and Juan Crosby, PWC NewLaw Services Leader. The title of the talk was Legal’s Next Disruptor? Demystifying the Big 4. Or as I put it before, is the Big 4 the proverbial big bad wolf?
If you may be wondering, the answer whether will the Big 4 be the next legal disruptor is not only yes. Its hell yes. (It’s no coincidence that the titles of two of the panelists feature the word law front and center).
Are the Big 4 firms friends or enemies? Are the Big 4 moving into the American legal space?
The panel was kicked off with the “elephant in the room” question: Are the Big 4 firms friends of law firms or enemies? Are the Big 4 moving into the legal space? I thought the first thing I would hear was of no, we aren’t enemies because the Big 4 can’t and won’t ever practice law in the U.S. As I have written in the past, until now, that’s how the Big 4 representatives always started the discussion.
Not any more. Mark Ross kicked the response by saying with a sly smile, we are friends. But not because the big 4 have no designs on the work lawyers do. He instead told us that the legal ecosystem is evolving, that client needs should be paramount. Ok. But then: “clients will benefit from end to end legal systems”. As in, clients will benefit from the broader range of services the Big 4 can provide, of which legal is only one. Or as Juan Crosby put it: