@Tim To which my response is to do what many Aussie companies do...

@Tim

To which my response is to do what many Aussie companies do i.e. have their own dedicated office offshore doing the simple stuff under Aussie supervision on-site. For instance, they would keep the name tags off the file.

The wider question is still what Shine believes its durable advantage to be. Roller-uppers are good initially doing what the smaller firms lack the resource to do. Also that a bigger outfit can redistribute labour and capital when one division has a slow patch.

There are start-ups trying to disrupt the legal industry by outsourcing to computers. So maybe the next wave is a tsunami.

@stayer,

With IMF, first mover in class actions seems a deep moat. Just put yourself in the position of a penniless litigant about to choose your lawyer/financier. You have one shot at this. Do you risk a lesser name offering cheaper everything or plump for the known quantity? It's just my opinion that the biggest $ cases will gravitate upwards to IMF who often give Morris Blackburne a slice of your pie too, which seems incestuous in a small shark pond.

IMF got out of the small cases because profits were negligible for the trouble involved. Maybe big or small makes little difference to case preparation. Many tried to replicate IMF. All failed so far. Don't stick your chest out and think you can be a good #2. Network effects are powerful!

Harvey Norman is its own can of worms IMO. Age gives one knowledge of what happens when long time founders quit or die. HVN reminds me of Reg Ansett's airlines and Peter Abeles' TNT Transport. Frank Lowy and Rupert Murdoch seem ahead of that issue by their recent actions.