The trend lines for corporate demand for legal services were once again mixed in the first half of 2014: Hours purchased were down by 4.4 percent compared with 2012, while fees paid increased by 2.9 percent. The pain was not shared equally. While fees paid to the Am Law 100 firms were up 5 percent and to the Am Law Second Hundred by 10 percent compared with 2012, the rest of the law firms—roughly 3,000 others—saw a slight dip of 0.8 percent in fees they earned.
Those are the headline results of the latest LegalView Legal Market Index, which is produced by TyMetrix, the giant electronic billing clearinghouse and data analytics and advisory company. For the Index, TyMetrix tracks the purchase of legal services by 70 large corporate clients. They include big companies: 21 are in the Fortune 500 and another 12 belong to the Fortune 1000. They operate in eight sectors, including financial services, health care, industrials, and technology. Those clients hire a lot of law firms: In each quarter, they hire at least 180 of the Am Law 200 firms and more than 3,000 others.
