Thomson Reuters recently (27 February 2023) published its 2 page Mid-year review of the Australian Legal Market.

As usual, the Report is a very interesting read; but by far the two standouts for me were:

Expense Growth

Notice that rise in Direct Expenses?

That’s down to the pay rises you just gave to your 2 to 6 year PQE lawyers who are now sitting around very under utilised!

Where will clients need help?

The other chart in the Report that caught my attention was where clients anticipate their spend over the next 6 months.

Given the hangover from COVID, Workplace doesn’t surprise me too much.

Dispute Resolution, in difficult economic times, will always be a winner.

But, why Regulatory? We have moved past most of our Royal Commissions…

…and unless I’m missing something there is no growth mentioned for either Privacy or Cyber.

Given the ongoing changes in privacy regulation in Australia just announced, and global concerns around cyber (with IPH Ltd going into a trading halt following a potential cyberattack on two of its member firms this week), this must be an oversight.

If this all sounds too close to home to be true, feel free to drop me a line to talk through how we can fix this up. 

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