SGH
Slater & Gordon Limited listed on Monday – the first law firm to ever go public. Its shares have gone up 60% from its offer price of $1. That will teach me to be lazy getting my prospectus application form in :( ILH finally seems to have got over its regulatory problems and is listing in a few months, but it’s quite a different firm compared to Slaters (it’s a lot smaller, for one). Will definitely be interesting to see how shareholder interests interact with the lawyer’s paramount duty to the courts and also to clients…
10:43pm (GMT +10.00) 
Stu,
It is quite interesting that this is the first law firm to ever go public. Why hasn’t any firms gone public before? Has any regulatory issues changed in the last few years?
Casey – I’m not sure why no law firm has gone public until now. Firms have started incorporating as private companies recently, but in terms of going public, I’m not aware of any regulatory changes which have made that easier. I mean, I don’t think it’s ever been strictly illegal, but the concern has always been that it opens the door to a conflict of duties. I suppose it took a while before people got comfortable for it (there was probably consultation with the various state law societies), or perhaps SGH just thought it was an acceptable risk.