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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

PROFIT PROPHECY  – At the start of the pandemic, when toilet paper was still being hoarded like gasoline in “Mad Max” and the legal industry was staring into the abyss of an economic downturn, most law firms would have welcomed a prediction that they’d be able to maintain flat profitability even with a dip in revenue. Six months later, as Dan Packel reports, it looks like a number—perhaps even a majority—of firms will be able to finish out 2020 doing just that. “Most of the firms that I have had conversations with are seeing a decline in revenue, but they are indicating that that decline is almost matched, if not exceeded, by decreases in expenses,” said Marcie Borgal Shunk, president and founder of The Tilt Institute. “That’s not only from precautionary measures, like cuts to partner distributions and furloughs. It’s even just reductions in expenses such as travel, event production costs, and health care, with elective surgeries down, for example. The profitability figures are, knock on wood, remarkably stable.”