Clients are clamping down on miscellaneous legal expenses, but the biggest law firms in the world are still seeing revenue increases. Groups that are not seeing revenue increases include: public interest lawyers and women. Also: the iPhone v. the BlackBerry.
- The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend on the increased pushback firms are seeing from clients for miscellaneous expenses. Such expenses can include everything from flights to food to photocopies and legal research. Given the increased scrutiny on profit margins in the current economy, some law firm clients are paying closer attention to the line items in their legal bills.
- According to Am Law Daily, the trend toward more lateral hiring at large law firms will continue. In a survey of 79 leaders of Am Law 200-size firms, “a whopping 96 percent of survey respondents indicated that their firms plan to hire laterals over the next two years as a means of growing.”
- Legal Week has announced its 2012 edition of the Global 100, a list of the world’s largest law firms by revenue. Baker & McKenzie and DLA Piper (which both use a Swiss verein model for organization) top the list. Legal Week reports that total revenues for the group grew by 6.8% over last year.
- ABAJournal had a story last week on a new NALP report finding “economic disincentives” for law students going into public interest law. Above the Law followed up. The question is whether law school tuition rates have fallen too far out of sync with the future pay of law school graduates.
- Boston Business Journal has news of a new report from the National Association of Women Lawyers, which found that earnings for female lawyers lag behind men at all levels, but particularly at the equity partner level. In addition, women are more likely than men to hold low-level staff attorney jobs. The report confirms much of what we discussed last month in our post on women in law firm management.
- Earlier this year, we wrote about the new trend of embedded librarians in law firms. Now ILTA and AALL have published a white paper on the subject by Holly M. Riccio of O’Melveny & Myers. Riccio’s paper, which appears in the October New Librarian (jointly published by ILTA and AALL), explores how embedded librarianship places librarians within a new framework at a firm, changing not only the nature of their work but how they are perceived.
Another One Bites the Dust: In another sign that Apple is gaining on BlackBerry in the fight over who makes the product most lawyers fall asleep clutching, Covington & Burling has announced that it will now give its lawyers the option of using an iPhone. The ABAJournal notes that the change was prompted by requests from associates. Perhaps it was inevitable though – according to the New York Times, BlackBerry shame is a thing.
Posted by Emily Fisher with contributions from Marianne Purzycki and Alanna White.
