I wrote a post in 2009 on consolidation in the UK top 200 law firms, I honestly thought that the UK marker would go through a series of mergers and end up with a much much smaller set of firms. But like the film Avatar (also released in 2009) it’s taken 13 years to be able to put out a sequel to that post.

It was a post from The Lawyer that caught my eye this week and reminded me of this topic. The line that jumped out was this one:

This data offers the clearest indication that more consolidation is on its way

13 years it’s taken and still the market is consolidating. This quote

Consider this: the overwhelming majority (94 per cent) of the UK 200’s total £33.47bn revenue is generated by the firms in the top half, leaving just 6 per cent (£2bn) to share between the 100 firms in the lower half

shows that even though the vast amount of revenue is in the top half, that’s still 100 firms! And it’s that top half that I can’t fathom. Of course there will always be a large number of independents in any industry, but you expect the top to consolidate to a handful of players, don’t you? Most markets talk about the Big n, never the Big nnn. Even if you take the Top 10 out (about £17bn) there’s still 90 sharing about £16bn.

So, look out for part 3 of this series in about 2035!