KPMG closes in on U.S. legal services licence

A judicial committee in Arizona has recommended that KPMG be granted a U.S. legal services licence. The Big Four firm says this would allow it to increase services offered to companies’ in-house legal departments. The subsidiary could also serve clients outside Arizona. “We’re not intending to focus, frankly, on any sort of bet-the-company type matters,” commented Christian Athanasoulas, a U.S. tax practice leader at KPMG. “What we do want to focus on are those places where our clients have told us that they are struggling, and that’s largely around large-scale, process-related legal tasks.” That could include synthesizing and re-drafting vendor and other contracts after a large M&A transaction, for example, he said. The firm has also said it would offer volume contracting and other managed services.