July 29, 2005
Law Firm Growth Prospects - 2005 Survey Results
Surveyed law firms are very optimistic on growth prospects over the next three years. 64% of firms surveyed indicated that they had moderate to aggressive growth plans over the next three years. Moderate to aggressive growth was defined as 10% to 50% increase in the number of lawyers.
The optimism seems well founded as 70% of firms grew revenue last year (31% grew between 11% and 20%) and 41% of surveyed firms grew partner income greater than 10% last year. 66% of firms grew partner income overall.
There is a high correlation between the growth in lawyers and expectations for growth in fee revenue. Accordingly, firms clearly believe that they will be able to grow fee revenue by at least the same percentage as growth in lawyers. To the extent that firms also expect gains in realization, productivity, and billing rates, it follows that managing partners are looking for fee revenue growth and profits per partner that exceed just the growth in the number lawyers.
The survey was conducted by Juris, Inc, and the Managing Partner Forum. In addition to grow related issues, the survey covered a broad range of operational and organizational topics. For a copy of the survey results, together with commentary, you can e-mail me, collins@Juris.com.
Related posts
Filed under Blog by Tom Collins