Amid an overall decline that spans roughly a decade and a half, plus waning influence during an era of record-high billing rates and generative artificial intelligence adoption, productivity across the legal industry actually rose during the second quarter of the year.

The measure of demand hours divided by head count at firms increased for the first time since the transactional boom in 2021, according to a report this week, and more than half of firms had lawyers billing more hours compared with 2023′s second quarter.