This week's analysis asks whether the close relationship between law firms and banks will be damaged by a string of tougher panel reviews since the crunch. But in many respects, it's an academic debate. Law firms in the UK have over the last 20 years so wholeheartedly structured their businesses around the needs of such clients that they have very little realistic option to break from the finance houses which helped fuel the profession's growth.

The UK is something of an outlier in this regard. Sure, banks are important clients in most halfway developed markets, but I would argue that there is no comparable jurisdiction where they have anything like as much legal clout as in the UK. The 'IBM factor' when discussed with regard to legal services in this country has always been misleading – it's really code for the select band of law firms that find favour with banks come the important deal.

Until very recently, there hasn't been much reason for law firms to question the role they have accorded banks – at least not for the firms on the banks' approved lists. A series of increasingly bruising panel reviews over the last two years has dampened the mood a little. But, being realistic, banks could squeeze a lot more out of most law firms before the vast majority would question their commitments.

And the truth is, while plenty of large law firms that struggle to get far with finance houses would happily give up and focus on other kinds of clients, the role of banks as gatekeepers for corporate work means few sizeable firms feel they can avoid paying the necessary tributes.

In many ways, of course, this is fair enough. Banks have put large amounts of business the way of their lawyers and are perfectly entitled to ask a lot in return. That's business.

If there's one questionable impact, it is that banks have monopolised the premium legal advisers at the expense of other large clients. If we are to believe that clients in general will become more demanding in future, there could come a time when some bluechips are no longer content to come second among equals on their advisers' premium client list.

A further issue for law firms will be the perennial question of commoditisation. In legal services, when the big 'c' strikes, there has been a broad but pretty effective response: get out of that business pronto. But investment banking is the one area in which that trick can't be easily repeated, as the practice combines plenty of bespoke work with relatively standardised, document-churning areas in capital markets, and banks like advisers to handle both ends of the spectrum.

City firms have been wrestling with that tension for years without coming up with many solutions. After all, there's no easy alternative.