US firms have been slow to deal with recession
It was, as results from our sister title The American Lawyer make clear, a year of two halves. Or rather three quarters and three months, as the US legal market in 2008 managed respectable growth until September, when the failure of Lehman Brothers brought the world’s financial system to the brink of collapse. After that, demand for legal services basically fell off a cliff by the standards of a cyclically-resistant industry, falling nearly 8% in the last quarter, according to Citi Private Bank.
