Rising compensation for both lawyers and professional staffers continues to inflate law firms' expense totals and put pressure on their bottom lines, according to experts evaluating fresh data on the legal industry provided by two major lenders. 

Firms across the nation saw total expenses increase by 6.2% over the last six months, with Philadelphia firms seeing above-average increases. The eight firms in the region surveyed by Wells Fargo saw an 8.2% increase in total expenses as well as a 19.2% increase in general expenses, compared to a national average of 11.7%.