The Legal Community in Birmingham, generally recognised as England's second city after London, has been the focus of much recent interest and activity.Around a year ago, Dibb Lupton Broomhead entered the city with its takeover of Needham & James.

More recently, Garrett & Co - the law firm linked to accountants Arthur Andersen - announced its intention to set up shop there.

It has begun advertising for 'visionary, Birmingham-based partners and assistants' with expertise in corporate, commercial, employment and property work.

Two other firms - one based in the City of London, the other regional - are also rumoured to have their eyes on Birmingham.So are the established Birmingham firms worried at the prospect of interlopers trying to lure away staff and clients? Not a bit of it, it seems.Commercial work in the city is dominated by a gang of four big, long established firms: Evershed Wells & Hind, Wragge & Co, Edge & Ellison, and Pinsent & Co.

Over recent years, particularly since the recession, these firms have succeeded in drumming up business from local plcs which previously used London firms for all their legal work.Mike Seabrook, deputy senior partner at Evershed Wells, said: 'We have convinced people we can provide the same service rather cheaper.

We also have the advantage of being on their doorstep.

If they have a problem, we can be there in half an hour - and they also see partners.'The consensus among the big four seems to be that the uniquely close-knit community hinders outsiders from luring away top lawyers or their clients.

There is little prospect of a repeat of what happened in Leeds, when a team of lawyers from local firm Simpson Curtis decamped to Garrett & Co's new office, they say.Digby Jones, senior partner at Edge & Ellison, believes that in the year since its arrival, Dibb Lupton has been finding it rather tougher to break into the area than it might have anticipated.

'If firms come down the motorway waving a big cheque book, people do not want to work for them.

It is a very close and loyal community.

It is almost a village,' said Mr Jones.This loyalty extends to clients, who do not shop around for lawyers in the way they do, say, in London.

Mr Seabrook said: ' Among the four of us, where we have been successful is not in nicking clients from each other, but in getting work out of London and into Birmingham.

I am not saying clients do not move, or that there are not attempts to prise away clients from existing relationships.

But that does not usually succeed unless you are doing a bad job.'John Crabtree, senior partner at Wragge & Co, is equally sanguine.

His firm's turnover for this financial year so far is up 18% on last year, he says.

The threat from any newcomers needs to be kept in perspective, he adds.

'The four main firms in Birmingham collectively add up to 1600 people.

Dibbs has around 100, Garretts has not yet got one.

We can only assume that they have not succeeded in luring anybody out of another firm or they would have got them by now - and they would not be advertising.'Opinion seems to be that Garrett & Co will attract individual associates, rather than partners and their teams, and that - even if it drafts in senior people from outside - it will take a considerable amount of time before it becomes a serious player in the area.

No one thinks the firm will ultimately fail, or lose money, just that it will be a slow process.Digby Jones says Garrett & Co's Arthur Andersen link will be a substantial disadvantage if it is hoping for rapid growth.

'For that to happen, they need to get a rainmaker and his team.

The problem with Birmingham is that any rainmaker is going to have very, very big contacts with all the accountants in the area.

If he goes to Garretts, he knows that every other accountant in town will never send him work again.

Garretts is going to be competing against us, plus every accountancy firm.'Not surprisingly, Nick Seddon, head of company and commercial at Dibb Lupton's Birmingham office, rejects this picture of universal sweetness and light among solicitors and their clients in the city.

A former partner at Needham & James who has worked for 15 years in the city, he rather doubts that Birmingham clients are any more loyal than those elsewhere.

Despite the protestations of the fab four, Dibbs is winning clients from them, he says.But he does not pretend that there have not been problems.

'Speaking as an ex-Needhams person, I think there was an assumption from Dibbs that they would come in with a solid base from Needhams and turn that into something much more, quite quickly.' That it has not worked out quite like this is less a failure of the firm to win new clients than its need to sort out the internal structure of the firm first.

'That has delayed our emergence into the next stage of development,' he said.Mr Seddon does not underestimate the difficulties Garrett & Co will face but says the big four are, perhaps, not as invincible as they like to claim.Unlike Digby Jones, he does not believe there is enough work in the city for everyone, and predicts a shake out over the next few years.

'There is not enough to feed the big firms that are here already, never mind to feed those firms plus Garrett & Co, plus whoever else comes.

There is going to be a hard-fought battle over the next four to five years.'Long established firms will not necessarily have the advantage, he says.

Firms like Dibbs and Garrett come to Birmingham, not to make a quick killing, but for long-term strategic reasons.For itself, Garrett & Co appears somewhat downbeat about its prospects in Birmingham.

Managing partner Julia Chain will say only that it is very early days and that the firm has no fixed ideas about how the branch will develop.

Her caution may be because - as the estab lished firms would have you believe - things are not going well (rumour has it that a senior partner at one of the gang of four turned down an offer of £300,000 to join), or - equally plausibly - because she is keeping her powder dry.

In the short time since its inception, Garrett & Co has made its name for what it does - not what it talks about doing.Arthur Andersen is already a strong presence in the area and is wealthy enough to put considerable resources into the project.And with Birmingham such an idyll of professional harmony, blissfully contented clients and solicitors who eschew material gain for job satisfaction, surely many more firms can be expected to flock there.