The Globalization of the Legal Profession

On April 6, 2006, the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington served as host to a long overdue conversation on how economic globalization is reshaping the legal profession. Participants included academics from law and business, managing partners, practicing lawyers, in-house counsel, and law firm consultants. At least for the day, all of us had the opportunity to reflect upon—rather than merely react to—the new rules of international competition and convergence. Further, the unique mixture of perspectives and human capital resulted in a thoroughly engaging dialogue among both participants and audience members. As a law professor at a U.S. law school, I confess that my perspective toward globalization is that of an American lawyer. Over the last several years, I have gathered extensive data on large corporate law firms. My primary focus has been the Am Law 200, which is comprised of the 200 largest U.S. law firms based on annual revenues. Although accounts in the legal press increasingly discuss expan-