The U.K. legal industry's total revenue fell 5% in April, according to analysis of Office of National Statistics data by litigation funder Augusta Ventures.

The industry generated £3.26 billion, down 4.7% on March's figures and down 5.5% on April 2019, the figures show.

The findings suggest that the sector has, to date, suffered less than some other parts of the U.K. economy, which have seen revenues drop by up to 20%.

But according to Augusta Ventures, the outlook for the industry remains uncertain, given that many of the mandates to have contributed to last month's revenues were likely to have started prior to the lockdown.

Louis Young, managing director at Augusta, said in a statement: "The U.K.'s legal industry has remained strong in April but the full impact of lockdown is yet to be felt. Many firms have been expecting substantial revenue falls and rightly taking action to reduce costs and shore up their finances in preparation for harder times in coming months."

Tony Williams, principal at Jomati Consultants, said that the findings were unsurprising, pointing out that transactional practices have slowed "very dramatically" during lockdown despite an uptick in employment, litigation, fundraising and financing mandates.

He added that he expects the industry's revenues between May and June to be between 10% and 15% off of "normal", though points out that some firms, particularly those without counter-cyclical practices, are likely to be harder hit than others.

"The major problem at the moment is that we have no visibility on how this is going to impact the global economy going forward," he says. "We need to feel we're past the worst of it. In terms of the death count we've thankfully passed that point, but in terms of business disruption we don't really know what is going to happen next."

Williams added that many firms are trying to avoid making redundancies where possible and cost-saving measures introduced at the start of the pandemic have contributed to making that possible, but warned that "no firm should be able to guarantee that there will be no redundancies" in the coming months.

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