Globalization and the U.S. Market in Legal Services: Shifting Identities

The article examines the international activities of various segments of the U.S. legal profession and analyzes the impact of these activities on the domestic market in legal services. It takes an empirical approach to the question of how international activities have shaped the profession by chronicling the foreign office activity of more than 70 of the largest U.S. firms. The data presented facilitates new insight into the ways in which U.S. lawyers participate in the international market in legal services. The article reveals that internationalization has resulted in the homogenization of the largest U.S. firms, as they increasingly compete for a limited group of clients and lawyers. Globalization has increased and facilitated competition between Wall Street firms and law firms originally based outside of New York. The non-New York firms have reshaped their identities to respond to internationalization and the resulting competition, which has affected their domestic identities as well