Two years ago, the Asian legal market didn’t pay much attention to the Big Four accounting firms. Two of them were already here. PwC and EY already had law offices set up in Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore, arguably the region’s most important legal markets. But the accounting firms’ Asian legal offerings were limited and appeared mostly to complement the firms’ other disciplines, including tax and compliance. For the region’s legal establishment, the threat of the Big Four was distant and abstract.

But in just two years, the Big Four have become a force that is penetrating Asia’s legal marketing, leaving few observers who still think of them as the nonconventional fringe players they once were.