Those of you who follow our blog, know that we regularly share with you the results of law business consultant Hildebrandt’s quarterly reports on the state of the large law firm market. Their report for the third quarter of 2012 (ending September 30th) is now out.
Like the last report (for Q 2), it’s not positive.
Key findings:
- overall demand for legal services dropped by 0.8%
- demand was down in every practice area with the exception of labor and employment, which was up by 2.5%
- IP litigation, which was a practice area that had performed relatively strongly in the recent past, was down by 3.6% in Q3.
- mid-sized firms performed relatively better than the largest firms
- demand in NY was up 4%, but down in LA, Silicon Valley, DC, and Chicago
- attorney headcount continued to grow, but the growth rate slowed
- the attorney replenishment ratio remained at 1.3 (about where it’s been for the rest of 2012)
- productivity (the measure of the ratio between capacity and demand) fell 2.5% (the third consecutive quarterly decline)
Bottom line is that Hildebrandt finds no reason to alter the prediction contained in its Q2 report that the large firm legal market will continue its “sluggish, largely flat trajectory” [Hildebrandt’s language] for the foreseeable future.