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Sobering Article on the State of the Legal Market

The head of Citibank’s Law Firm Group, which has analyzed trends in the legal industry over the last eight years, has written an excellent, but sobering article about current market dynamics across the industry (large, mid-size and small private firms).

Among other things, he concludes that law firms, which have gotten used to seeing +10% revenue growth over the past eight years, will likely experience no growth in profits this year or even a dip of as much as 10%. (This is a downward revision from Citibank’s projections of just six months ago). At the same time, expenses (nearly a quarter of which consist of associate compensation) have and are likely to remain high. Read the whole thing here.