In the recently conducted annual American Lawyer Survey of top US law firms.. firm leaders are more upbeat than one would expect..
In a report accompanying the survey we get snippets that suggest the bigger law firms see the ride in 2009 as bumpy but not disasterous
Here are a few examples of what’s being said.
See the survey and read the report at
http://www.law.com/jsp/tal/PubArticleTAL.jsp?id=1202426213256
Perhaps the best indicator of this business-more-or-less-as-usual attitude is the relative stability our survey respondents projected for head count in 2009. Even amid reports of layoffs and recalled offers to summer associates, 72 percent of firm leaders said that they plan to increase head count–not growing as robustly as in previous years, to be sure, but growing nevertheless. Many firm leaders, in fact, said in interviews that economic uncertainty breeds opportunities for smart lateral hiring. "We’re starting to see a trend of people [changing] firms because they’re not confident in the vision their current firm has of the future," says Bingham McCutchen chairman Jay Zimmerman.
Firm leaders are counting on revenue growth in such traditionally countercyclical practices as litigation and restructuring to offset a contraction in deal work and real estate. Intellectual property litigation, in particular, continues to be a growing practice area, according to interviews with managing partners. Morrison & Foerster chair Keith Wetmore points to the relatively healthy tech sector as evidence that IP will remain strong. "Technology companies have not been so hard hit by this [downturn] that they have stopped protecting their crown jewels," says Wetmore.
and although profits won’t be going through the roof they still expect to make money..
The inability to gauge the future has also created a dramatic shift in firm leaders’ predictions of profitability. For the first time since we launched this survey in 2003, a majority of firm leaders–78 percent–reported that they do not expect profits per partner to grow by more than 5 percent next year. A sizable chunk, 43 percent, expect growth of a few percentage points, but an unprecedented 35 percent of managing partners predict profits will decrease or stay flat in 2009. And even those predictions, says Cravath, Swaine & Moore presiding partner Evan Chesler, are premature in such a volatile market.
