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

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 pape...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Law & social inquiry 2004-07, Vol.29 (3), p.615-638
Main Authors: Dezalay, Yves, Garth, Bryant G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
"From the Trenches and Towers": MDP's After Enron/Andersen
Accountancy
Accountants
Attorneys
Big Five accounting firms
Business structures
Commercial law
Corporate regulation
Corporations
Credibility
Enterprises
International law
Investment banking
Law firms
Lawyer client communication
Lawyers
Legal ethics
Legal practice
Legitimacy
Litigation
Multidisciplinary practices
Powell, Jay
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0897-6546
1747-4469
1545-696X
DOI:10.1111/j.1747-4469.2004.tb01003.x