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: Scotland has kept Linklaters, a British firm, busy well into this year working on last year’s euro 71 billion ($99 billion) takeover of ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank. Tony Williams of Jomati, a legal consultancy, predicts that “2008 will be a black year for everyone.”

Another concern for potential investors is that lawyers are not proven business leaders. Clients frustrated with private-practice lawyers often accuse them of lacking commercial nous. Because most lawyers spend much of their time peering at small print, big-picture concerns can go unnoticed. Few managing partners know their firm’s profit per billable hour, even though that is the main product law firms sell. Cost control is often an afterthought, trailing far behind revenue generation.

Furthermore, lawyers have never had to endure the same pressures as the managers of listed companies, where the shareholders call the shots. In law firms, equity is held by a small number of partners. Outside investors are sure to be less sentimental and more critical when analysing a firm’s performance.

For law firms that do decide to go public, success will depend on their managers’ ability to run them as public companies, rather than members-only gentlemen’s clubs.