Welcome to Pa Law 2023, our 30th annual report on the legal profession in the Keystone state. For the past three decades we've kept a close eye on the most important developments for the Pennsylvania legal world, and reported back to you the reader. This year has proven to be one of uncertainty, change and trials. As you'll see in this year's Managing Partners Survey, the optimism that fueled strong growth over the past few years has turned cautious. Pennsylvania firm leaders have always prioritized measured growth, but firm leaders this year reported softening interest in mergers and launching new offices. The outlook comes in the face of rising costs, shrinking revenue margins and increased difficulty collecting on outstanding bills.
Pennsylvania's midsize law firm market underwent the most significant changes in 2023, with two mainstay litigation firms closing its doors. Although many said the closures were the product of longstanding trends, firm leaders tended to agree that market forces are pushing many midsize firms to find dynamic practice mixes and client bases if they want to survive in today's rapidly changing market.
However, despite the uncertainty and gloomy outlook on the business side of things, courts and litigators found themselves busier than ever as cases that were left lingering during the COVID-19 lockdowns began hitting the trial phase in 2023. And they show no sign of stopping any time soon. Here we aim to provide the numbers and statistics underlying these trends, in the hopes that learning from the past can help us bring at least a little more stability to our future.
Here you'll find Pennsylvania's 100 Largest Law Firms and Largest Verdicts & Settlements lists, and the results of our 29th Annual Managing Partners Survey.
The cautious outlook jibes with what firm leaders said about their revenues this year. Fewer reported seeing revenue increases than at any point since the pandemic.
Dips in transactional work translated into a mixed-bag of financial results for Pennsylvania's Am Law 200 firms in 2022, as they returned to reality after 2021's glut of hiring, transactional work, and revenue increases.
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