"Top Law Firms May Face Rough Future"
Mar 09, 2007
It's certainly smart to face this possibility now, right? Even if the law biz doesn't cool:
"Will the good times cease to roll for leading law firms?
"With some gloom -- though not so much doom -- industry observers forecasted a cooling of the legal market over the next five years at the Law Firm Leaders Forum, held Thursday and continuing today in San Francisco. Ever-increasing pressure on rates from clients, rising costs, including the recent hike in associate salaries, and segmentation of the marketplace will make it hard for firms to maintain robust growth -- especially of their bottom lines, they said.
"'There are a lot of red flags waving right now,' said Bradford Hildebrandt, a law firm consultant with Hildebrandt International. 'I would be starting to plan for an economic correction.'"