WHAT’S HOT, WHAT’S NOT:

TOP TEN PREDICTIONS ABOUT THE 2012 LEGAL MARKET

 
 
What will the legal industry look like in 2012?  Our Washington, DC team, Jordan Abshire, Diana Rubin and Amy Savage, share their predictions below. 
  1. IP litigation and prosecution will continue to be hot in 2012, as will FCPA.  Those with EE, CE, or CS credentials are golden!
     
  2. Due to the recession and the corporate slow-down, few mid-level corporate associates were able to get great experience all the way through.   Those that were will be in very high demand.
     
  3.  Dodd-Frank rules are being finalized.   We will see a flurry of activity in the New Year, as clients seek to comply.
     
  4. General Counsels will continue the recent trend of bringing more legal work in-house, leading to continued in-house hiring in 2012.  
     
  5. Law firms’ recent practice of offering signing bonuses to entice associates to move before the end of the year will reappear next year in the hotter practices, as firms compete for talent.
     
  6.  Law firm mergers will continue to be the norm in 2012.
     
  7.  Expect to see an exodus of New York-trained talent to other markets as Big Apple associates collect their bonuses and seek to relocate to markets offering fewer hours and a lower cost of living.
     
  8.  Many firms will try to add associates to help lighten the load in over-worked practices.  Those who can add talent quickly will spread the work around and retain existing associates.   Others who cannot  risk losing their over-worked associates, making the problem even worse.
     
  9.  In-house legal departments will begin to decentralize their legal and compliance staffing away from headquarters to meet the demands of their businesses in foreign and emerging markets.
     
  10.  General Counsels will continue to offshore legal work,  including  e-discovery, document review, due diligence and legal research that would have gone to law firms in the past.  Some may come back to the U.S. as costs of on-shore contract attorneys continue to fall.

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