After Davis Wright Tremaine and Baker McKenzie both announced retrenchment efforts Tuesday and Venable followed with news of staff cuts of its own, legal industry watchers anticipate further reductions to attorneys and staff as firms use the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to tighten up their operations.

While firms are undoubtedly feeling some pain as a result of the coronavirus recession, many are looking to take preemptive measures to ensure that they can continue keeping their most productive partners happy.

"A very high priority for most firms, including right now, is to protect their most significant contributors from the threat of poaching from competitors. In many firms, part of what it takes to do that is compensating those most significant contributors at market or as close as possible to market," said Zeughauser Group consultant Kent Zimmermann.