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The Business Benefits of Leasing When Combatting the Increasing Costs of Operating a Firm

By Mike Henderson, Whitney Jones and Bill Pitcairn
July 01, 2023

The cost of operating a law firm is becoming more expensive. From increases to associate pay, to rising costs of recruiting, to the additional costs of hybrid operations and increased cyber security needs, there's a variety of reasons as to why overhead expenses have been steadily increasing quartile by quartile, with Q1 of 2023 ending at an 11.7% increase, according to the Citi Law Firm Group Q1 2023 Report.

Even more challenging is that — for most firms outside the top 50 — incoming revenue is not meeting this steady increase in expenses. This year as of the end of Q1 2023, expenses were outpacing revenue by 6.3% across the industry, mainly for firms outside the top 50 firms which reported revenues outpacing expenses through record breaking rate increases, according to the Citi report.

While challenging overall, firms are stable, profitable businesses posting solid profitability projections through the end of 2023 — but not quite breaking the records as was the case in 2020 and 2021. Profitability is important, however, when recruiting high value laterals into the firm, and so protecting every inch of the firm's margin is key — especially when the macroeconomic outlook is volatile with whispers of recession and a heated political environment heading into the fall.

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