By Leon Fernando Del Canto, barrister, Del Canto Chambers
The rise of big law firms is having a significant impact, not only on the social representations of how ‘an independent lawyer’ is perceived among the general public, but within the legal profession itself. Is independent lawyering under siege?
The Big law firm paradigm, the Firm, born in the USA after the IIWW, had a great impact on the way independent lawyering was practiced in the UK, favouring collective models such as the partnership or the modern legal “corporations”.
But the Firm´s paradigm also changed the particular image of what an independent lawyer is, does and looks like. The time has come to question whether the model that the Firm has brought with it and the image of lawyering that has been created in the public imagi...