A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters.
The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as well as the lawyer's area of practice. In many jurisdictions, the legal profession is divided into various branches — including barristers, solicitors, conveyancers, notaries, canon lawyer — who perform different tasks related to the law.
The Big Four are the four largest professional services networks in the world: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC. They are the four largest global accounting networks as measured by revenue. The four are often grouped because they are comparable in size relative to the rest of the market, both in terms of revenue and workforce; they are considered equal in their ability to provide a wide scope of professional services to their clients; and, among those looking to start a career in professional services, particularly accounting, they are considered equally attractive networks to work in, because of the frequency with which these firms engage with Fortune 500 companies.
The Big Four all offer audit, assurance, taxation, management consulting, valuation, market research, actuarial, corporate finance, and legal services to their clients. A significant majority of the audits of public companies, as well as many audits of private companies, are conducted by these four networks. Until the late 20th century, the market for professional services was dominated by eight networks which were nicknamed the "Big Eight". The Big Eight consisted of Arthur Andersen, Arthur Young, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte Haskins and Sells, Ernst & Whinney, Peat Marwick Mitchell, Price Waterhouse, and Touche Ross.
Service industries are those not directly concerned with the production of physical goods (such as agriculture and manufacturing).
Some service industries, including transportation, wholesale trade and retail trade are part of the supply chain delivering goods produced in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors to final consumers. Other services are provided directly to consumers: these include health care, education, information services, legal services, financial services, and public administration.
Professional services networks are business networks of independent firms who come together to provide professional services to clients through an organized framework. They are notably found in law and accounting. Any profession that operates in one location, but has clients in multiple locations, may provide potential members for a professional network. This entry focuses on accounting, legal, multidisciplinary and specialty practice networks. According to statistics from 2010, members of these networks employ more than one million professionals and staff and have cumulative annual revenues that exceed $200 billion.
The accounting networks developed first to meet the US Securities and Exchange Commission's requirement for public company audits. They include the well-known accounting networks like PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG (also known as the Big 4 Audit Firms) as well as more than 30 other accounting networks and associations. They are highly structured entities.