Business confidence among the UK's top law firms has edged up during the past three months – despite the recent slump in share prices, according to this week's Big Question.

The latest quarterly survey of business
confidence among the 100-plus senior solicitors on the Big Question's panel shows the business law community remaining stubbornly optimistic.

Some 91% of the panel believe their firms' fee income will increase over the next 12 months – the same figure as in the March 2002 survey.

However, a closer look at the poll does indicate that optimism is edging up. In March 2002, 48% of the panel predicted their firms would record double-digit growth in the next year.

This latest survey shows that figure increasing to 59% – although this still falls well short of the 71% who were predicting turnover increases of 10% or more a year ago.

Danny Gowan, executive partner at DAC, is one law firm manager who is feeling particularly optimistic. The firm's financial year began at the start of April and the first three months have been well up on a year ago.

He reports a significant increase in the amount of high-end insurance litigation work and a healthy stream of instructions from the firm's residential property developer clients.

Joel Simon, the head of the London office of US West Coast firm Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker, is also reasonably optimistic. "From what we have heard from our clients, the capital markets will continue to be slow, but real estate does seem to be very active.

And by that I mean more than just property conveyancing, but also investment and financing-related work."

However, Simon concedes that the market is a very difficult one to read. "Even though the economy seems to be doing well, the market does not seem to be reacting," he says.

One senior lawyer at a firm with a strong M&A practice is somewhat gloomier. He can find little evidence of an upturn in transactions. "We are still getting a lot of deals in the pipeline, the difference is that far fewer of them are actually coming to fruition," he says.

Nevertheless, he reflected that despite having what he considered to be a disappointing year, it was still the firm's third best ever.