Deloitte has become the last of the Big Four accountancy firms to announce plans to re-enter the legal market with the appointment of Rotterdam-based Piet Hein Meeter as global managing director of Deloitte Legal.
The move will see Meeter, formerly chief executive of Deloitte in the Netherlands, build an international legal practice.
‘Deloite Legal will build on the international trend towards integration of process, technology, and deep legal capability,’ Meeter says on his LinkedIn profile.
Having officially started with Deloitte Legal in early June, Meeter plans to develop technology-enabled global solutions by integrating tax and legal with technology to ‘deliver bundled solutions to clients with complex critical challenges.’
Meeter, who joined Deloitte as part of the firm’s takeover of Arthur Andersen, stepped down as chief executive, according to Reuters, after ‘breaking internal rules on owning stakes in companies whose books are audited by the accountancy firm.’
Meeter did not take any decisions about the stakes he held nor was he involved in auditing companies in which he held stakes, Reuters added in its report in March 2012.
He was re-appointed as global managing director of tax & legal and corporate development & strategic growth in August 2012.
Meeter’s appointment is the latest effort by the Big Four to take on the legal market and follows an announcement last week that EY has made its third senior private practice hire in three months, as Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Richard Norbruis joins to lead its global transaction law practice. Norbruis follows Berwin Leighton Paisner’s former head of finance Matthew Kellett, who will spearhead EY’s financial services legal work from September onwards. In March EY recruited Addleshaw Goddard’s corporate managing partner Philip Goodstone to boost its UK legal capability.
Neither Deloitte or Meeter were available for comment at the time of writing.
Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
