The catchy take-away from the Thomson Reuters “2024 Report on the State of the US Legal Market” is that law firm leaders who don’t respond to the shifts in the legal market in the past 15 years may share a destiny with Pan Am.
The US airline, Pan Am, was the largest international carrier in the mid-20th century. Pan Am filed for bankruptcy in 1991, after decades of tremendous growth in air travel. For those who recall Pan Am, it’s a vivid illustration. You will see the tie-in below.
Looking at today’s legal market, the Thomson Reuters report is full of data and graphs which quantify recent trends.
Key Trends:
- There is a shift from the “Transactional Decade” of the 2010’s. Money was easy to borrow and transactional practices, including Corporate, M&A, and Real Estate climbed.
- More recently, the majority of growth is in counter-cyclical practices such as Litigation, Bankruptcy, and Labor & Employment.