Despite a healthy increase in demand last year, lawyers, judges and law firms are still playing catch-up on litigation after COVID-19 shuttered courthouses and stalled trials. But Big Law leaders say they expect pent-up litigation demand to continue to be a boon this year and next.

Although demand for litigation was up more than 3% in 2021, pandemic uncertainty continued to cause problems. The omicron variant led to additional jury trial delays in late 2021 and earlier this year, exacerbating backlogs caused by the initial wave of COVID-19 closures.