While a return to the legal industry’s pre-2008 halcyon days remains out of reach, law firms should expect to see the modest positive momentum they experienced in the second half of last year extend into 2014, according to a report produced by Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group and Hildebrandt Consulting.
The nine-page client advisory [PDF], which is to be released Monday, notes that though growth in demand for legal services was down 0.6 percent at the end of 2013′s third quarter, that figure actually represented an improvement compared to how the industry fared in the year’s first half. The advisory’s authors also cite the 2.7 percent growth in revenue across the industry through the year’s first three quarters—which they link in part to modest rate increases—as proof that 2013 ended with positive momentum.
