There were a couple of good articles in tday's Gazette that you may have missed :-
Page 5 has a great article by Rachel Rothwell where she interviews Sacha Romanovitch of Grant Thornton who warns firms not to be complacent over the issue of external owners coming into the legal market. She highlights the stock broking market of 1980s to the legal market of today.
Page 11 has an article on a similar vein from Alastair Moyes or Market Law. Alastair advises firms on what they need to start thinking about from a marketing perspective to protect their business from the impact of the impending arrival of some major brands into the legal market. I've spoken with Alastair and he knows what he's on about, so if you need some marketing help, Market Law are one of the firms I recommend you speak with.