The Big Six accountants are the legal world's bogeymen.

Privately, they are talked about in hushed tones around the City law firms as possibly the greatest threat to the traditional provision of legal services.

Publicly, however, City solicitors put on a brave face.Do law firms really have much to fear? According to Global Law in Practice, a book published this week to mark the International Bar Association's (IBA's) 50th anniversary, the answer is a resounding yes.

In a chapter on multi-disciplinary partnerships (MDPs), Ward Bower, the chairman of the IBA's MDP committee, says 'a scenario in which the major accounting firms have taken over the world-wide provision of international corporate legal services is not implausible'.It is already happening, the IBA has found.

A survey of its 183 member countries revealed that in 72% of responding jurisdictions, organisations other than law f irms are currently selling legal services.

Accountants, followed by banks, consulting firms and insurance companies, were found to be the main threats.The Big Six accountants have many competitive advantages over law firms, Mr Bower says, including their size, international client base and capabilities, and availability of capital.

So he says it is 'premature and potentially foolish' for the large law firms 'to discount or underestimate either the will or the ability of the accountancies to acquire the resources to enable them to compete at the most sophisticated levels of law practice, on a world-wide scale, in a relatively short period of time'.The evidence across Europe is clear.

Already the Big Six own half of France's ten largest firms, while the merger of Arthur Andersen and top Spanish law firm J&A Garrigues sent shock waves across the continent last year.

In the Netherlands, Arthur Andersen and Price Waterhouse are taking court action to challenge the ban on MDPs, and Ernst & Young has caused a stir in Belgium by setting up a law firm under its own name.In the UK, Garretts, the firm set up in association with Arthur Andersen, is one of the fastest growing law firms in the country, while both Price Waterhouse, with Arnheim & Co, and Coopers & Lybrand, with Tite & Lewis, now have associated firms.

Ernst & Young is thought likely to follow suit shortly.'I don't think [City firms] should be afraid,' says Christopher Tite of Tite & Lewis.

'It's a free market in which we operate and all we're doing is offering clients out there another means of obtaining legal advice.

We shouldn't be viewed as a threat, no more than any other new law firm.'Mark Lewis adds: 'Yes, law firms have to watch what the Big Six are doing.

We might be a worry to the biggest and certainly to the medium-sized firms.

Equally, all firms have to worry about mergers going on out there.'There are rumours of a Big Six firm merging with a top eight law firm and of three-way mergers.

All of these present serious challenges to the legal services market.'Mr Bower is emphatic that law firms have to build these threats into their strategies.

The accountants' law firms should not be dismissed -- as they have been by some City lawyers -- as 'second-tier commercial practices'.

He presents three options: join the accountants in MDPs or looser alliances; do nothing, which he says will allow the accountants to take over large areas of legal work; or fight back.In undertaking this last option, Mr Bower says firms should break all contact with competing accountants and then move into non-legal fields, such as management consultancy.

Lawyers should also make a public virtue of their ethics and independence, he recommends.John Pike, chief executive of Stephenson Harwood -- the firm from which Mr Tite and Mr Lewis moved -- says the accountants are one of three competitive threats that a top 2O City firm such as his has to take into account when planning its strategy (the other two being other City and US firms).

Potentially, the accountants are the biggest threat, he says.

'Maybe today they're not, but one day they could be.

We can't ignore them.'However, only the biggest law firms could try and take on the accountants, Mr Pike explains.

Stephenson Harwood is trying to cement its clients and areas of practice so that if and when the accountants are of sufficient size to compete, the firm is protected.'Our strategy actively takes the accountants into consideration,' he says.

'If moving into legal services makes business sense to them, they will do it.'Geoffre y Howe, managing partner of Clifford Chance, said his firm will only compete with the accountants in legal services.

The firm is not interested in an MDP.

He says: 'This is a law firm.

That's what we're good at.' Clifford Chance would only consider adding new facets to the business if they would assist in providing legal services.

'We would not try and add to the business for its own sake,' Mr Howe explains.Mr Howe maintains that at the top end of the market MDPs are not essential, because clients buy on ability not 'one-stop shop' convenience.

However, they could be appropriate in other sectors where there is an opportunity to sell on convenience and price rather than on real expertise.The lawyers who have set up in association with accountants put their faith in the market.

Mr Tite says: 'We will compete on quality, resource and a whole number of other areas, but ultimately it's the consumer who's going to decide whether to come to us or not.'Should lawyers be so precious? Do those who fear for lawyers' independence and standards know best? Or is the day of the one-stop shop fast approaching? In the era of the market, it seems as if the consumer is right whatever.Mr Bower concludes: 'Ultimately, the market place will tell us whether it buys the argument of those lawyers committed to and promoting independent law firms, or those allied with the accountants and other service providers.'