Legal industry results halfway through 2017 reinforce our belief that full-year results will feature margin compression, low-single-digit growth in revenue and profits and continued dispersion and volatility in performance. While revenue growth was higher than in any first half of the last three years, the expense increase, due in large part to the rise in associate salaries implemented in mid to late 2016, was slightly higher than revenue growth, a reversal of the trend in the prior three comparable periods. On a positive note, lawyer demand growth and rate increases were each somewhat stronger than in any of the last three years at the halfway mark. Demand dispersion (the range of increases to declines in a given period) and volatility (an up period followed by a down period or vice versa) continue to plague the industry at levels similar to what we’ve seen in the post-2010 years.
