Law firms are facing dramatic changes in the legal services sector as it navigates through a 'near perfect storm'. Challenges are being thrown up by the economic downturn fuelled by sophisticated demands around delivery and pricing, off-shoring and market liberalisation that allows non-lawyers to own legal businesses. In the future, Tim Bellis believes that law firms may need to alter their hiring policies in the future to reflect their approach to increasingly commoditised work-streams where the best and brightest are replaced by the plodders.