汤森路透研究所中期法律市场状况报告

No time to rest Executive summary Midsize law firms1in the United States are enjoying a prolonged moment in the spotlight. Year-endresults from 2024 found Midsize firms once again near the front of the pack in terms of demand growth At the same time, Midsize law firms have gotten much more aggressive in growing their hourly rates inrecent years compared to historical standards, placing them in a more favorable revenue picture. This First, Midsize law firms have not been as aggressive in growing their rates as their competitorsegments. This has created a bit of a double-edged sword — Midsize law firms are potentially missing Second, expenses have grown for the averageMidsize law firm, dampening the prospects for furtherprofit growth. The average Midsize law firm was stillconsiderably more profitable at the end of 2024 thanit was at the end of 2019; however, profit growth forMidsize firms was markedly below those firms in either Midsize law firms are enjoyinga prolonged moment in thespotlight ... however they Even coming off of this prolonged period of growth, however, Midsize law firms should be careful notto get too comfortable in their success. The legal market is constantly evolving, and perhaps nevermore rapidly than now. Larger law firms have teams of people dedicated to driving innovation, both intheir internal processes as well as in their client-facing functions. Midsize law firms that choose to rely Of course, that is not to say that Midsize law firms need to employ innovation teams of similar size orcapability to be able to compete with larger rivals; however, Midsize firms would be well advised todo their own explorations of emerging technologies and learn how they might be employed to help How Midsize law firms stand,by the numbers Understanding the key measures Law firm performance is tracked through a host of metrics, but a few key measures provide an effectiveoverview of the overall health of any given segment of the market. FIGURE 1: Midsize law firm key performance measures 2024 vs. 2023|Year-over-year percent change Even absent comparative context, it is immediately noteworthy that all of the key performanceindicators (KPIs) are in positive territory, including productivity. As was noted in the2025 Report onthe State of the US Legal Market,2productivity is one of the key metrics that the average law firm hasstruggled to move into positive territory. In fact, the overall legal market has seen a nearly 15-year trendof declining productivity.3The fact that Midsize law firms were able to keep productivity in positive However, some comparison of Midsize firms’ KPIs to those in other segments provides important context. FIGURE 2: Key performance measures by segment Year-over-year percent change While the strength of demand growth for Midsize law firms is notable, particularly given the years-longpattern of growth these firms have enjoyed, Midsize law firms are still third in regards to growth ofworked rates and fees worked.4The lag in these metrics, particularly fees worked, coupled with growth Demand As demand measures total billable hours worked, it is worth exploring this metric in greater detail. FIGURE 3: Midsize law firm practice demand growth 2024 vs. 2023|Year-over-year percent change The average Midsize law firm saw demand growth across a wide spectrum of practice areas.Importantly, Midsize law firms saw growth in both counter-cyclical and transactional practices.5Regarding the latter, while M&A demand grew by 2.6% and corporate work grew by 2.4%, the The key driving force for growth among Midsize law firms in 2024 was undoubtedly litigation, whichgrew by 4.6%. While this scale of demand growth is impressive, it is a bit worrying. If, as some predict,litigation work experiences slower demand growth or even some contraction in 2025, Midsize law The TR Institute’s View: Historically, Midsize law firms experience weaker growth for transactional practice demandthan do their larger peers. In the event of a litigation slowdown, Midsize law firms will need toput considerable effort into winning transactional demand — no small task, given how mucheffort can be consumed in business development efforts to win new work. Those firms looking Billing rates Given concerns over potential instability in demand growth for Midsize law firms going forward, evengreater importance can be placed on the growth of law firm billing rates, particularly worked rates. As is seen in Figure 2, Midsize law firms trail their peer segments in terms of the aggressiveness withwhich they have pursued growth in worked rates. While three-tenths of a percentage point may notseem significant, remember that the growth figure is expressed as a function of the prior year’s billing That is not to suggest, however, that Midsize law firms have not made progress in pushing their rates.The segment’s year-end 2024 worked rate growth of 5.6% represents an improvement on 2023’s 5.4% Midsize law firms have