The well-known legal business consulting firm Hildebrandt Baker Robbins just published a report of its Peer Monitor Index, which includes information about key law firm business metrics for July – September of 2010.
You can read a summary of the report here. You can read the whole thing here.
Among other things, the report shows that — very much in line with how the overall economy performed in Q 3 — the market (at least for large law firm legal services) lost a bit (but, by no means, all) of the ground it (ever so slowly) was gaining over the previous several months.
Demand for services was down 1% over last year. Productivity [hours per attorney] actually fell by .4%, which reversed a recent trend of modest increases (though the rate of increase showed some slowing in the previous quarter). The gains in the previous quarters had largely been due to headcount reductions. The report summary states:
“Reduced productivity is pressuring firm profitability and may cause firms to re-evaluate their hiring patterns in the face of weak demand and pricing. This is particularly relevant because many previously deferred new associates are scheduled to begin work in early 2011.”
We’ve regularly blogged about the Peer Monitor system before (click here to view the most recent prior post), but to refresh you , it is a service that allows law firms to access their peers’ financial data (in the aggregate) in exchange for supplying their own data to the system for others to access (on a normalized and aggregated basis). There are 35 Am Law 100 firms, 35 Am Law 200 firms and 30 NLJ 250 firms in the system. You can find more information about the Peer Monitor system here.