The American Lawyer (via law.com) has a piece (ominously titled “Law Firms ‘Shrinking Toward Profit Growth'”) reporting on midyear data gathered by Citibank’s Private Banking Group.
We’ve blogged about Citibank’s Law Firm Group before (here). The source of their data was: 87 Am Law 100 firms, 50 Second Hundred firms, and 50 other firms.
Citibank’s latest findings based on their data gathering are consistent with those recently reported by Hildebrandt (which we blogged about here). Among the findings: 1) revenues were flat; 2) demand was slightly lower than the first six months of last year; and 3) net income and profit was up, but this was mainly due to reductions in expenses (in particular reductions in attorney headcount).
You should read the whole American Lawyer article for better understanding of how firms performed financially during the first half of 2010.