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Wage Growth Is Dependent on Revenue/Profit Growth

BY James D. Cotterman
January 27, 2011

The National Law Journal 2010 Law Firm Billing Survey reports a 2.7% increase in average firm-wide billing rates over 2009 in the 250 largest U.S. law firms. This is a significant departure from larger annual, pre-recession increases. Nevertheless, it is roughly consistent with inflation, which may offer some measure of solace.

If the slowdown in annual rate increases marks a turning point in the pricing profile of the legal profession, it could lead to some serious wage growth challenges for law firms. Wage growth is dependent on both per-timekeeper revenue and profit growth.

Per-timekeeper revenue is a function of pricing (mostly hourly rates), utilization (billable hours) and realization (what is collected as a percentage of the value of the time recorded). In the last 25 years, annual billing rate increases (typically close to twice the annual rate of inflation) have been the key driver of per-timekeeper revenue growth in excess of inflation (see Chart 1, below).

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