Well, this is interesting…

Five ex-Davis Langdon partners setting up their own practice to embody the original values of Davis Langdon, before it was taken over.

When the US buy-outs of the large QS practices commenced, one of the responses was to bemoan the death of the traditional (albeit huge) partnership and the career path that it brought.  The question was asked: what would make working for a multi-national construction consultant any different to working for management consultants of the likes of IBM or Accenture?

One of the responses was that, while mainstream professional construction services may well be offered through a management consultancy model that apes other sectors and, potentially, devalues the professional institutions, those who truly cared about the craft and praxis of their work would find another way of enacting their values.  Commentators suggested that small, focused ’boutique’ practices would emerge.

And what do we have here?  Interesting times.