Poor first quarter results for US legal industry
Citi Private Bank and the American Lawyer have conducted their annual surveys of the leading firms in the US legal profession, reporting marginal growth in the first quarter of 2013.
According to The American Lawyer, there was a surge in demand and collections during the last quarter of 2012, producing a respectable 1.7 percent grwoth result for 2012, down from 3 percent the year before. But the rush at the end of last year robbed the first quarter of 2013 of a strong result: revenue growth increased just 0.2 percent in the first quarter, compared to 1.2 percent in the comparable quarter last year.
The report goes on to look at the reasons behind a 3.3 percent drop in demand for legal services, the effect of rate increases, and the correlation between greater international presence and a drop in revenue.