High Billing Rates May Hasten New Era of Productivity
"The way the market is structured and has been structured for a long time, it's not really a question of growing productivity, it's how do we mitigate the contraction of productivity?" said Bill Josten, strategic content manager for Thomson Reuters.
May 10, 2024 at 06:00 AM
5 minute read
Law Firm ProfitabilityThe original version of this story was published on The American Lawyer
What You Need to Know
- Legal industry experts already know the number of hours billed isn't a be-all, end-all metric.
- Record billing rate increases are giving firms less reason to worry about an era of low productivity.
- Although AI-enabled work is already occurring, the technology has yet to make a material impact on lawyer productivity.
Lawyer productivity in law firms appears to have plateaued around roughly 1,550 hours, down from its high-water mark in 2021, according to Wells Fargo data. But analysts don't expect a wave of layoffs as a result of overcapacity and lower utilization.
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