Many falsely believe the Big Four were kicked out of the legal industry in the early 2000s. The Economist even went so far as to state, after the Enron scandal drove regulators to limit the range of legal services audit firms could provide, that “accountancy firms’ drive in the legal arena is dead.”

Such reports—as Mark Twain once famously said when he was informed of a rumor of his own death—were greatly exaggerated.