Regreso al futuro. La reactivación de las divisiones jurídicas de las Big 4 en Europa y el futuro de la abogacía de los negocios

In the context of a comprehensive study by Harvard Law School on the role of the Big 4 accountancy networks in the reconfiguration of the global market for legal services, in this essay, we focus on the revival of the Big 4 legal arms in three of the leading countries in continental Europe - Germany, France and Spain and in the UK, arguably the most important legal market in Europe, and arguably the market most likely to signal where the global legal market is likely to be headed. Using an original data set fom secondary sources, this paper underscores the gains that the Big 4 have made in these four leading European legal services market. We conclude by briefly discussing what this recent success might indicate about the future of the legal services market generally.