Capital minds
FEATURES
What do you feel is currently the greatest or most significant barrier to your firm’s growth or further success?
How likely do you believe it is your firm will incorporate as a limited company in the next five years?
Are people in your firm or prospective hires increasingly asking for flexible working such as regular working from home days?
GET YOUR COPY NOWISSUE IN BRIEF
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to attend any of LPM’s conferences, you’ll be well aware of our pollster-in-chief Rupert Collins-White and our mini survey about your thoughts on market trends, with which we poll attending law firms on the day. The 2019 results are in and what better way to wrap up the year than with a glimpse at SME law firm market trends as told by you and your peers.
When asked how optimistic you were about your firm’s place in the legal market of the future, a pleasant 56% of respondents said they were cautiously optimistic and a further 38% were very optimistic. Very few responded toward the neutral or negative ends of the spectrum. Great news for the market, considering the number of challenges on the horizon – from regulation, economy, clients and more. When asked to rate the challenges your firm will face over the next two years, 50% said they would be more serious or much more serious, and 40% said similar to previous years. SME law firms are seemingly mentally prepared to face these issues head on, either from the comfort of having faced these challenges already or confident that they will be able to face the tougher ones to come.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Catherine Wahlberg, managing director at Alsters Kelley, agrees that the key to overcoming the challenges to come will be how individual firms respond to those difficulties. “Business models within the legal sector have changed to be more responsive. Adapting to differing environments, challenges and demands is critical.”
ON THE RISE
Investigating the biggest factors impacting the SME legal market, unsurprisingly the response of client pressures on cost was the top of the list, followed by technology being exploited by firms, and regulatory landscape. These top three factors haven’t changed since last year’s poll.
SHIFTING HABITS
Around a third of firms say a millennial will potentially be running things within the next five years – so clearly, talent and confidence exists and is moving through the legal ranks – however, there’s still been a lot of noise around the need to recruit ‘good-quality people’ recently, says Gary Shaw at Accesspoint.
