Even as the overall demand for legal services remained flat in the second quarter, large firms sold about 10 percent more hours to corporate clients than they did during the first three months of 2013. But that bump in demand masks a sharp 11.6 percent year-over-year drop in the legal market, which suggests that this is already another difficult year for many law firms looking for top-line growth. Still, there was some good news for firms when it came to the blended hourly rates that clients actually paid during the first six months of the year. Clients bought fewer hours but on average they paid 6.5 percent more for the hours they purchased.
Those are the headlines from a new index of client-buying behavior produced by TyMetrix, the giant electronic billing clearing house. Called the LegalView Legal Market Index, this quarterly report is based on the purchases of legal services by 70 large corporate clients across eight industry groups ranging from financial services to health care, industrials to technology.
