Journal ArticleDOI
The storm over our heads: The rendering of legal services by audit firms in Spain
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In the last few years the legal profession in Spain has been in turmoil as discussed by the authors, and the needs of clients have placed two challenges before Spanish attorneys and these have forced law ® rms into two distinct forms of association.Abstract:
In the last few years the legal profession in Spain has been in turmoil. The market for legal services has undergone profound changes and the profession has done its utmost to adapt to client’s new demands, modernising ® rms and improving the quality of the services rendered. Besides, the Spanish market for legal services is growing at a rate 20% higher than other European markets. The needs of clients have placed two challenges before Spanish attorneys and these have forced law ® rms into two diVerent forms of association. The ® rst has to do with globalisation. Business has grown transnationally and lawyers have had to attend client’s demands of legal services in other countries. This has lead Spanish law ® rms to increase their size and also to many kinds of international alliances and networks formed by several ® rms from diVerent countries. There are some instances of Spanish law ® rms trying to extend their services into other countries, by establishing a branch oYce or by taking over a foreign ® rm. This worldwide phenomenon aVects the legal professions of all countries, which ® nd themselves in ® erce competition for clients. In the case of Spain, however, the pressure and competition by foreign law ® rms has been more relevant due to two important factors. First, the increasing competition by foreign attorneys within the single European market. Secondly, the Spanish legal market is seen by many foreign ® rms as the access gate to the South American legal market. The ® rst challenge is therefore about competition among law ® rms in an increasingly integrated worldwide market for legal services (intraprofessional competition). The second challenge is related to multidisciplinary services and the rendering of non-legal services by law ® rms or the rendering of legal services by non-law ® rms. Law ® rms, consulting and auditing ® rms are becoming multi-product ® rms. In this case, law ® rms’ competition is not directly with other law ® rms but with other professionals, mainly audit and consulting ® rms (interprofessional competition).read more
Citations
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Book ChapterDOI
Lawyer Involvement in Mediation and the Co-Option Thesis
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the idea that lawyers have deliberately sought to co-opt the mediation field and claim it as part of their own legitimate professional activities at the expense of other would-be mediators.
References
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Book
The economic structure of corporate law
TL;DR: The corporate contract limited liability voting the fiduciary principle the business judgment rule, and the derivative suit corporate control transactions the appraisal remedy tender offers the incorporation debate and state antitakeover statutes close corporations trading on inside information mandatory disclosure optimal damages as discussed by the authors.
Journal Article
The Impossibility of Auditor Independence
TL;DR: Bazerman et al. as mentioned in this paper examine a series of experiments on self-serving bias, in which bias entered unconsciously and unintentionally while subjects made supposedly impartial judgments, causing auditors' judgments to favor their clients.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mandatory Disclosure and the Protection of Investors
TL;DR: The notorious complexities of securities practice arise from defining the details of disclosure and ascertaining which transactions are covered by the disclosure requirements as mentioned in this paper, and there is very little substantive regulation of investments to affect substance, as when it demands that insiders not trade without making "disclosures" that would make trading pointless.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mandatory rotation of company auditors: A critical examination
Benito Arruñada,Cándido Paz-Ares +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the effect of the mandatory rotation of corporate auditors on audit cost and quality and found that it increased audit costs and prices through the destruction of specific assets and the distortion of competition.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reinventing auditing, redefining consulting and independence
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the auditor cannot be independent because auditing is no longer independent, which represents a fundamental break with the established epistemological dualism between auditing and management advisory services, and the consequences of this rupture are finally discussed.