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The Confrontation between the Big Five and Big Law: Turf Battles and Ethical Debates as Contests for Professional Credibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Yves Dezalay  and
Bryant G. Garth
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Abstract

This article uses interviews and comparative professional histories to explore the stakes of the battle—pre-Enron and seen in reactions to the Enron crisis—between the organized bar and the multidisciplinary practices (MDPs) associated with the Big Five accounting firms and their law firms. The paper examines modes of professional practice—family, Continental corporate law, and the Cravath model—to describe the tensions and potential solutions to maintaining professional legitimacy without appearing too close to business or economic power. The paper then seeks to explain preliminarily why the MDP debate became so strong in the United States despite the fact that the actual threat to U.S. corporate lawyers appeared relatively small. It suggests that the interjection of the Big Five potentially threatened a relatively precarious professional legitimacy with different impacts for different sectors of the bar.

Type
“From the Trenches and Towers”: MDPs After Enron/Andersen
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , Summer 2004 , pp. 615 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2004 

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