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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

DON'T COME AROUND HERE NO MORE - Law firm partners can't wait to see their clients in person again. But according to a new study, the feeling is not necessarily mutual. Awkward! As Law.com's Patrick Smith reports, the survey, from legal technology company Clio, found clients are 25% more likely  (35% compared to 28%) to prefer virtual meetings over in-person meetings.  Clio's report is partly based on a survey of more than 1,100 legal professionals, almost 500 professionals from other industries and more 1,150 consumers of its cloud-based legal products who were surveyed this April and May. The report did find, however, that even though clients may not want to meet in person with their attorneys, they still want them to be local. The report suggests this is because clients want their outside counsel to know local laws and regulations but also allows for the fact that clients simply want the option of an in-person meeting available to them.

KILLING TIME - U.S. lawyers have been spending a little more of their workday on billable hours this year, compared with the last three years, but continue to devote two-thirds of their time to non-billable matters, Law.com's Brenda Sapino Jeffreys reports. According to a 2022 Legal Trends Report made public this week by Clio, a Canadian company that provides cloud-based practice management for firms, U.S. lawyers are putting 33% of an eight-hour day, or 2.6 hours, on billable hours—a statistic known as the utilization rate. The rate was 31% for the last three years. They are also billing more hours on average for every matter they take, according to the report. With demand up, lawyers are opening new cases at a rate averaging 10% higher when compared with a baseline of 2019, and are converting that increase in new matters to more billable hours, according to the report. "The increase in billable hours indicated lawyers are capturing more billable time, taking on larger cases that require more work, or that the average case requires more time to complete," Clio wrote in the report. Compared with a baseline of 2019, which was before the pandemic, the average lawyer caseload was 10% higher from March 2021 to August 2022, and average billable hours were up 22%. During that same time, the number of hours billed to clients—the realization rate—was up by an average of 28%, and revenue was up by 31%. That means, according to the report, that every hour of legal work has become more valuable to firms.

ON THE RADAR  - Vista Equity Partners has agreed to acquire KnowBe4, a security awareness training platform, for an equity value of approximately $4.6 billion in cash. The transaction, announced Oct. 12, is expected to close in the first half of 2023. Austin, Texas-based Vista Equity is advised by Kirkland & Ellis. KnowBe4, which is based in Clearwater, Florida, is represented by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Potter Anderson & Corroon. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is counseling KKR & Co. The Gibson Dunn team includes partners Saee Muzumdar and Wim De Vlieger. A Latham & Watkins team led by partners Hans Brigham and Bradley Faris represent Elephant Partners. Moulton Moore Stella is serving as legal counsel to KnowBe4 founder, Stu Sjouwerman. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com. 

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