Legal News

Managing Partners? Prediction for Rest of ?09: ?Pain?

By Ashby Jones

Will business conditions will improve at law firms over the next six months or so? Nobody knows, of course, but as a group, law-firm managing partners sure aren’t optimistic. The prediction, to quote Mr. T in Rocky III: Pain.

The quarterly findings from the Citi Private Bank Law Firm group were publicly unveiled on Monday, and the results were dismal. Click here for the executive summary. Click here and here for other posts we’ve done on the so-called “Managing Partner Confidence Index.”

The lowlights:

Overall confidence: The overall confidence index is down four points from last quarter, to an all-time low of 69 (on a scale of 1 to 200). “Across the board, the views of managing partners about the economy at large, the legal market and the financial health of their own firms are mired deep in negative territory.”

Revenue: Revenue forecasts are gloomy as well, hitting another all-time low at 65. “After a 26-point hit in the fourth quarter, the revenue index lost another 18 points. Close to two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) expect revenue to stay flat or decline.”

Associate hiring: On associate hiring, the survey turned up a decided glass-half-empty-glass-half-full result. The good news: 34 percent of the managing partners think the associate numbers will grow in the next 12 months. The bad news: a roughly equal number (33 percent) think the number will fall. And yes, that leaves roughly the same number (32 percent) who think the size will stay the same. We’ll let you be the judge on whether this is good news.

Law Blog YouTube Video of the Day: If you haven’t seen the “Pain” clip from Rocky III should probably reacquaint yourself with it now. (Law Blog Note to Self: Don’t rule out “Clubber” for name of firstborn-son.)

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 30, 2009 (boomark / email).