If Axiom Global Inc completes its plan to become a publicly traded company, it would mean one thing for certain: the legal staffing company's longtime investors will finally get a payout. Beyond that, industry experts said competition among alternative legal services providers would remain largely unchanged by adding a publicly traded peer.

With Axiom declining to comment other than confirming its long-awaited IPO plans, legal industry watchers were left to speculate about what the company's decision to split into three businesses said about the market for those individual services: legal staffing, contract management and enterprise managed services.

The staffing business is what the company hopes to list publicly – in a deal that would likely provide an exit for investors who have been with Axiom since as early as 2005, as well as capital to pursue faster-paced growth.