one vast legal marketplace. As the world
becomes more interconnected, businesses
increasingly foster relationships and
conduct legal transactions across national
borders, creating new opportunities in
many sectors.
But along with opportunity,
globalization also brings challenges
for law firms as well as clients. Legal
departments in corporations of all sizes
must not only find legal expertise to
help with these cross-border business
interactions, but they must find it
economically. And lawyers must be
willing to embrace creative solutions to
traditional molds of the legal industry.
Meanwhile, regulatory bodies are
working to determine how their countries
will structure regulations over foreign
attorneys practicing within their borders.
Here, we examine some issues raised by
globalization and how lawyers and clients
around the world can work together to
navigate this new, smaller world.
businesses, is changing and old borders
are quickly disappearing," said Robert
Bivins, partner at Primerus member firm
Bivins & Hemenway, P.A., of Valrico,
the North America chapter of the Primerus
Business Law Institute (PBLI). "With
those disappearing borders comes new
risks to businesses as they compete in the
global market. Law firms can either adapt
and prosper or hold to old ways of doing
business and risk becoming irrelevant in
the new economy."
According to James Wilber, principal
at the legal consulting firm Altman Weil
and co-leader of the firm's department that
serves corporate law departments, the firm
receives more requests than ever to help
inside counsel figure out how to do legal
business outside of the United States.
Globalization of the Legal Market