The global chartered accountancy (CA) firms dwarf even global law firms in revenue and have increasingly been getting into legal services, with PwC’s legal arm now having a headcount of lawyers equivalent to the world’s tenth-largest firm already generating $500m per year from law, reports the Economist:

Those most at risk from the attack of the bean-counters are the profusion of mid-tier legal firms in liberalised markets. Since their profit margins are already low, they cannot afford even a modest loss of market share. Unfortunately for them, much of their business is high-volume, repetitive tasks—just the sort of work that the Big Four excel at standardising and automating.

In India, CA firms have been making inroads into legal too, with Ernst & Young (E&Y) having arguably been the most visible via its close alliance with aggressively growing start-up PDS Legal. Even domestic CA firms such as Mohinder Puri & Co have made forays into legal best friendships, having hired former Amarchand Mangaldas tax head Aseem Chawla in 2012.

The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) and the Bar Council of India (BCI) have also been in talks about the growing threat of CA firms, other than just foreign law firms, with the Madras high court having indicated that CA firms might be in violation of the law by practising it.