Recovery Is Picking Up The Pace In Chicago Legal Community
From the National Law Journal
With bright spots in real estate, health care and regulatory work, Chicago's legal community reported a fairly strong first half of 2013 following years of slow recovery. But like most in the Midwest region, the real focus is on whether revenue growth will accelerate so that clients can boost their legal spends overall.
"Companies are beating [earnings] projections, but that's due largely to continued cost-cutting — and law firms live on the debit side of the balance sheet," said J.P. Helder, a legal recruiter at H3 Counsel LLC. "We might have to wait until the fourth quarter to see any real evidence of that."
From attorney Jeffrey Stone's perspective, the legal market is "not out of the woods." He said, "The economic recovery is continuing. We've had a strong first half, but it's not as robust as everyone would like it to be." Stone is a trial lawyer and chairman of McDermott Will & Emery's management committee. "People are still feeling vulnerable."
At Sidley Austin, incoming management committee chairman Larry Barden offered a similar scenario: "This is not an explosive economy, but it's improving." Major Chicago-area firms are responding to the phase-in of the Affordable Care Act with increasingly busy health care practices, and white-collar investigative work is growing to satisfy the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the National Law Journal
With bright spots in real estate, health care and regulatory work, Chicago's legal community reported a fairly strong first half of 2013 following years of slow recovery. But like most in the Midwest region, the real focus is on whether revenue growth will accelerate so that clients can boost their legal spends overall.
"Companies are beating [earnings] projections, but that's due largely to continued cost-cutting — and law firms live on the debit side of the balance sheet," said J.P. Helder, a legal recruiter at H3 Counsel LLC. "We might have to wait until the fourth quarter to see any real evidence of that."
From attorney Jeffrey Stone's perspective, the legal market is "not out of the woods." He said, "The economic recovery is continuing. We've had a strong first half, but it's not as robust as everyone would like it to be." Stone is a trial lawyer and chairman of McDermott Will & Emery's management committee. "People are still feeling vulnerable."
At Sidley Austin, incoming management committee chairman Larry Barden offered a similar scenario: "This is not an explosive economy, but it's improving." Major Chicago-area firms are responding to the phase-in of the Affordable Care Act with increasingly busy health care practices, and white-collar investigative work is growing to satisfy the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.
Read more in our daily News Update...