Given the natural conservatism of the legal market both in the UK and globally, when the leader of one of the UK's largest law firms describes the pace of change in the sector as "glacial" it's a definite sign that a dramatic move is long overdue. Because after years of discussion about globalisation, consolidation and the Legal Services Act (LSA) revolutionising the market, the reality is that much of this transformation is yet to happen.

Analysis of the financial performance of the UK's top 50 firms shows a sector that, while strong enough to produce a fourth consecutive year of revenue growth despite some pretty wobbly economic conditions, is ripe for change. And that change is most likely to come through consolidation. The five magic circle firms brought in £5.5bn last year – an impressive performance and certainly the best average showing across the legal elite in several years. But this figure equates to more than the revenues of all of the firms ranked from 11-50 combined. It is still a long way off the market domination of the big four accountants, but it demonstrates in an instant both the opportunities for consolidation and the difficulty in comparing businesses that are becoming increasingly disparate in nature. 

Much of the merger activity that has occurred, as well as the adoption of the LSA, has been in the insurance sector. This shows the challenge of trying to achieve meaningful comparisons for firms that may sit next to each other by revenue but are a world apart on other metrics, such as profit per equity partner, revenue per lawyer or leverage. You could of course argue that we are wrong to try, that a ranking of disparate UK firms is no longer relevant or that a global ranking alone would be more appropriate. But the reality is that the market hasn't quite reached that point. While many firms claim to be global, the number that can justifiably wear that badge in the UK remains relatively small. And in the meantime you can still tell a lot about firms' performance from all of the above comparators, although care needs to be taken when choosing which firms to apply which metric to. 

The last few years of economic uncertainty mean firms have inevitably focused on revenue and profitability over everything else. But now that the markets are distinctly more positive – as this year's results show – firms can start to be more ambitious and transform how they operate through new ways of working, or improve their position in the market through consolidation. It will be interesting to see which firms rise best to the challenge.