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Rate Hikes Threatening Trusted Status with Clients

By Dan Packel
December 01, 2021

After years of clients working to trim their roster of firms to a trusted group that understands the specific challenges of their businesses, rate hikes are threatening to upset these delicate relationships.

New data from advisory and accounting firm Withum provides the latest signal that firms of all sizes intend to push up rates in the coming year. A flash survey of law firm leaders and executives found that a vast majority of firms intend to raise rates by either 1%-5% or 6%-10% for all categories of fee earners. Rate pressure for associates is especially significant, across firms of all sizes, with over 40% of respondents honing in on the 6%-10% window. And nearly 10% of firms are looking at an increase exceeding 10% for their equity partners.

That's a hard pill to swallow for many leaders of in-house legal departments. Ann Kappler, the executive vice president and general counsel at Prudential Financial, has been working to get to a place where firms that serve the insurance and investment management giant are "true partners" to the business. That's entailed winnowing down her list of outside firms so that 80% of Prudential's legal work goes to roughly 30 firms who should be fully invested in the relationship.

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