Working at The American Lawyer these days is a bit like working at Saturday Night Live in 2013. Viewers/readers remind you often about your august alumni, they remember in great detail sketches/articles that predate you ("Skaddenomics," anyone?), and they continue to have strong opinions about what you do.
This notion of the past coloring the present also applies to law firm financials. Many people over 30 remember the boom years of the previous decade, when profits rose 712 percent annually, gross revenue jumped 812 percent every year, and summer and first-year associate classes only got bigger. If that’s your starting point for looking at Big Law’s 2012 financials, forget it. The latest numbers aren’t that flashy. But if you look at The Am Law 200′s financials from a "new normal" postrecession standpoint, there are many reasons to be bullish.
