They came, perhaps warily, but they came.

For the first time, top law firms sat down with the top accounting firms to discuss a future of multi-disciplinary practice (MDP).

Among the 15 lawyers, accountants, consultants and regulators crammed around a table at the London office of top US firm Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, there was little debate about whether that future would arrive; it was assumed that, in some form or another, MDPs were inevitable.For Mark Andrews, senior partner of City law firm Wilde Sapte, which last year failed in its attempt to join the Arthur Andersen network, MDPs were a question of choice, both for clients and for lawyers, who he said should be free to choose 'what kind of partnership they want to be in, what kind of business they want to do and with whom they wish to be in partnership'.He contended that MDPs could work at three different levels: 'There are many who think the high street is the natural home for the MDP.

The second level is the mid-corporate market, where I am sure there is a certain size of corporate client for whom it would be tremendously convenient to be able to buy the complete package of professional services in one place.

But I do not think that is a huge market.

Then finally there is a demand, certainly a market, for global transactional business to be done by MDPs'.The mistake lawyers made, according to Michael Simmons, chairman of the International Bar Association's practice development committee, was 'to view the law as something rather sacred and separate'.

The accountants did not call themselves accountants; rather they were business advisers.

Mr Simmons explained: 'Most of us are business advisers.

It is really a question of how the wheels get oiled.

We are part of that oiling process.

I think we can put ourselves into any sort of package we want.

We can work with the accountants or we can work separately.

We can have MDPs which are accountancy-led.

No-one has yet talked about MDPs which are lawyer-led, but I see no reason why law firms should not start taking the initiative.'But while MDPs may be inevitable, it does not mean they are trouble-free.

Problems range from the acknowledged issue of conflicts of interest (see page 6), to pay, recruitment and the different cultures of lawyers and accountants.

But Mr Andrews said that 'if you decide you want to work with a bunch of accountants, it does not mean you have to turn into one'.

And Christopher Tite, managing partner of Arnheim Tite & Lewis said he had been struck by the fact that for PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountants associated to his firm, only 19% of its business was audit, with the rest made up of a 'catholic church of people', such as tax advisers, corporate financiers, management consultants, and actuaries.

Mr Tite said the MDP concept was proving particularly popular with younger lawyers.

'It could be that the sort of mergers and acquisitions lawyer that you all know and love will be the sort of guy who will probably be fulfilling an investment banking-type role in ten years' time, with his core legal skills in place, but having access to a whole suite of other skills as well, and the ability to work in a totally different environment.'In any case, is there demand for MDPs? At the top end of the market, there was little, said Ian Terry, managing partner of top City law firm Freshfields.

The accountants have been successful with MDPs in Europe, mostly practising tax and employee benefits but were now targeting the higher value commercial work.

'Speaking from the perspective of my firm,' said Mr Terry, 'we have not seen evidence of the client demand for the MDP for the sort of transactional high-value multi-national work that we have done'.

Ian Barlow, head of tax and legal at KPMG, added that private surveys had shown finance directors 'more antagonistic' towards MDPs, while legal directors 'welcomed an alternative'.But, said former Dibb Lupton Alsop partner Stuart Benson, now a legal consultant with Howard Nash Management, 'who knew they wanted the Sony Walkman until it had actually been invented and someone told them the value of having one?' Elizabeth Wall, former general counsel at Cable & Wireless, agreed.

The Walkman analogy was fine, she said, so long as what was being offered by MDPs was a 'quantum leap' in terms of service.

'If it is not that type of innovation, then it is probably not something people will want to deal with.'For the big law and accountancy firms, the key word is globalisation.

As the roundtable's organiser Richard Levick, of US legal public relations company Levick Strategic Communications, said, it is widely predicted that during the next few years, ten to 15 global law firms will emerge.

The race is now on to be in that select group.But the message last week was that there was room for everyone, even at that top level.

If there are only five large accounting firms, then that leaves room for five to ten large law firms to be in the top echelon.

And as both Michael Simmons and Paul Smith, a senior Eversheds partner, noted, the kind of work such global firms would specialise in -- international capital markets and high-value cross-border transactions -- leaves plenty of other fields for smaller law firms.

However, there was concern about the future of mid-sized City firms which tried to offer a full range of services but had neither top quality nor real depth.Coming from one of those firms aiming at that top echelon, Mr Terry seemed relaxed about the competition from accountants.

'I think it is important that the free market decides these questions.

I do not think lawyers need to be defensive about MDPs.

There is room in the market for lots of competitors and we are ready to compete against them.'But MDPs may just be the start of the journey, predicted Mr Tite.

A future where other providers of legal services, perhaps companies such as Microsoft, emerge.

'I can see e-business and e-commerce manifesting themselves in ways with which we have not even started really to get to grips with and raising all sorts of transnational legal issues along the way.

It is a very exciting time and I think the MDP is just part of that.'