Chill guys... But yeah. I think capacity is a real issue for boutique firms. The managing partner of a boutique firm could come from a MC firm but sometimes the work is so complex and so voluminous that such a partner cannot do it alone or even with the help of a handful of associates.

Where I used to work, we paid millions to a White Shoe firm to come up with a manual that came was thousands of pages thick and had to be produced in a couple of months. Another thing about boutique firms is that unless you are blood-brothers with the general counsel of MNCs/banks, they are not going to simply give you the business just because they had dealt with you for a long period of time in your MC/WS/Big4 firm. They have to answer to their bosses and if they have the budget, why risk it on a new setup? They dealt with you largely because the firm you represented has the reputation for handling such projects. That's my 2 cents.

Very keen to listen to counter-arguments, if any.