legal trends Archives

Legal Sector Growth in 2025: Key Trends and Insights

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2024 marked a year of growth in the legal industry driven by surging demand for legal services, rising billing rates, and expansion into emerging practice areas. With this growth, finding the right legal talent to meet your firm’s growing needs is essential. Collier Legal Search combines deep expertise in legal staffing with a focus on understanding the specific needs of each law firm to meet their hiring needs in this high-growth environment. Here are the key factors driving this growth and how you can be prepared for continued growth in 2025. Strong Demand Across Sectors The legal markets surge in demand across various sectors led by regulatory compliance, privacy, litigation, and complex commercial transactions. Businesses seek expert legal guidance in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Legal professionals are being called upon to provide indispensable counsel across these sectors, from navigating new data privacy laws to addressing the intricacies of international trade. Regulatory Compliance and Privacy – Businesses are under pressure to ensure compliance with governments worldwide implementing stricter regulations. Cybersecurity and data privacy are key areas as companies grapple with safeguarding sensitive information amidst rising threats. Law firms specializing in these domains are seeing a boom in activity, with clients requiring help to meet current standards and prepare for future regulatory changes. Collier Legal Search specializes in sourcing top talent in these high-demand areas, ensuring your firm has the expertise needed to stay ahead. Litigation and Complex Commercial Transactions – Litigation remains a cornerstone of the legal industry, bolstered by disputes stemming from economic uncertainties, mergers, and acquisitions. Complex commercial transactions, including cross-border deals and sophisticated financial arrangements, further drive demand for specialized legal expertise. At Collier Legal Search, we connect you with experienced litigators and transactional attorneys who can handle the complexities of these high-stakes cases. Rising Billing Rates Fuel Revenue Growth Law firms are also reporting significant increases in billing rates, contributing to record-breaking revenue figures. According to recent reports, billing rates have risen by an average of 9% in 2024. This uptick reflects clients’ heightened value of expert legal services in navigating today’s challenges. The ability to command higher rates underscores the premium on specialized knowledge and top-tier client service. Profitability at Record Highs Reports from the ABA Journal and other industry sources highlight that law firm profitability is nearing record levels. Double-digit profit growth is becoming the norm as firms effectively manage rising operational costs while capitalizing on high demand. This financial robustness positions the industry to weather future uncertainties with confidence. Collier Legal Search understands that profitability hinges on having the right team. With an established network of candidates, we provide access to skilled attorneys and legal professionals to ensure your firm’s success. Emerging Practice Areas Drive Expansion Several emerging practice areas are experiencing exceptionally high growth, reshaping the legal services landscape. These include: Cybersecurity and Data Privacy: As cyber threats escalate, legal experts in cybersecurity and data privacy are in high demand. Firms are assisting clients with compliance, breach response, and proactive measures to safeguard digital assets. Healthcare Law: The evolving healthcare industry presents legal challenges ranging from regulatory compliance to intellectual property in medical technology. Intellectual Property (IP): Innovation in technology and media continues to fuel IP disputes and transactions, with firms playing a critical role in protecting and monetizing intellectual assets. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Compliance: As ESG considerations become central to corporate strategy, firms advise clients on navigating this complex and evolving space. Collier Legal Search helps firms tap into these emerging practice areas by sourcing attorneys with specialized skills and experience. Regional Growth: Spotlight on Texas Texas stands out as a hub for legal industry growth. AM Law 100 reports indicate that many Texas-based firms are experiencing some of the most significant headcount and revenue increases, with Houston and Dallas experiencing the most growth. Factors contributing to this regional boom include the state’s thriving economy, a strong corporate presence, and strategic investments in high-growth practice areas. The Texas legal market also benefits from diverse industries, from energy to technology, that rely heavily on legal expertise. Firms in this region are well-positioned to capitalize on continued growth opportunities, cementing Texas’ status as a key player in the national legal landscape. Positive Outlook for 2025 The momentum seen in 2024 is expected to carry into 2025, with experts predicting sustained demand for legal services. Firms are optimistic about expanding into fintech, renewable energy, and international trade law. The industry’s growth and positive outlook create optimism, but there are challenges, including the need for talent acquisition, retention, and maintaining service quality amid rising workloads. Opportunities for Expansion Reports from Bloomberg Law and other sources highlight opportunities in sectors such as: SEC rulemaking and compliance Renewable energy projects Private equity and venture capital transactions Collier Legal Search can help your firm seize these opportunities by providing access to candidates with expertise in these high-growth areas. Navigating Challenges While the industry is in a strong position, firms must address specific challenges to sustain growth. These include: Talent Acquisition and Retention: The high demand for legal services requires a bench of skilled attorneys and support staff. Collier Legal Search excels at helping firms address these challenges by connecting you with top-tier candidates. Our consultative approach involves understanding your firm’s unique needs, conducting a thorough search, and presenting you with a shortlist of highly qualified candidates that best fit your firm. Technology Integration: As the legal industry increasingly digitizes, firms must adopt advanced technologies to streamline operations and enhance client service. This includes leveraging AI for legal research, case management, document review, and having a candidate pool ready to manage the industry’s ongoing technical transitions. Client Expectations: Meeting rising client expectations requires balancing efficiency, transparency, and exceptional service delivery. Firms that prioritize client-centric approaches will stand out in a competitive market. The legal industry’s performance in 2024 highlights its resilience, adaptability, and capacity for innovation. As demand for legal services grows, firms are seizing opportunities in high-growth practice areas, raising billing rates, and achieving record profitability.

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Collier Blog - Staffing Challenges 2022 Part 2

Staffing Challenges 2022 Part II

Blogs / collierlegal

In an effort to retain employees and create a positive culture, employers find themselves with some staffing challenges. Because business must continue, employers are finding new solutions to keep the workflow going. Developing a strong relationship with a qualified staffing firm will aid in employee retention and create the culture you and your employees seek. Explore these ways to keep your organization staffed with competent, qualified workers no matter the circumstances. Problems Employers Face While building a positive work culture and accommodating employees and their families are excellent approaches, there are economic realities of running a business that companies face. You may encounter issues as you balance meeting your employees’ needs and completing your firm’s work accurately and on time. Business Needs to Keep Running If your organization works year-round, there will be times when it is challenging to keep the doors open and accommodate your employees. Major holidays, summer and winter school vacation seasons, and spring break will be times every employee wants to spend with their family. Hiring seasonal staff when your core employees want to be with their families offers an excellent solution to keeping your firm running efficiently. Employees Need Time Off Your employees will need time off unexpectedly. Family emergencies crop up, particularly when employees have children. While employers want to be flexible and accommodating, these unexpected days off can drain productivity and efficiency. Drafting an accommodative policy that still allows work to finish on time will be a sensitive process. Filling in the Gaps with a Staffing Agency One way to ensure that your company accommodates all employees, particularly those with families, is to fill in gaps with a staffing agency. The agency will dispatch competent, qualified workers to fill in for your regular employees when they take vacations or have family emergencies. While you could try to do this independently, using a staffing agency offers a streamlined experience for solving your staffing challenges. Find Permanent or Temporary Staff Not only can Collier Legal Search help with your ongoing staffing needs, but we can also provide temporary staff giving you the flexibility to have a compassionate leave policy while protecting your business and keeping workflows running smoothly. Keep Business Running With temporary workers, your business will function efficiently without disruptions while also keeping your workers happy. Temporary workers can cover unexpected gaps and times when many workers with children will be out, like major holidays or school vacations. Save Time and Money Searching for and vetting workers can be time-consuming. Without replacement staff, you may experience a costly drop in productivity. A staffing agency can source top-performing talent quickly, allowing your business to function seamlessly and without disruption. Develop a Relationship with a Staffing Firm The more you work with a staffing firm, the better they can fulfill your staffing needs. Building a relationship with a staffing firm allows them to understand your business, anticipate your staffing needs, and prepare workers who will match your needs. Knowledgeable About Your Business If you build a relationship with a staffing firm, they can learn the nature of your business and anticipate cycles when you might need extra help. This familiarity can help them have appropriate candidates ready to step in when needed. A staffing firm can work with you when you need temporary staff to cover employee vacations or personal days. Can Best Fulfill Your Staffing Needs If you have a relationship with a staffing agency, they can find the perfect workers for your organization. They will know what type of worker you prefer, what sort of experience and knowledge you demand, and send repeat candidates to your organization as substitutes. The more you work with one staffing firm, the better they can meet the needs of your staffing challenges. Saves You Time Sifting Through Applications Time spent sifting through applications is time you could spend doing more profitable activities. A staffing agency relieves that pressure and provides capable workers who can seamlessly replace your existing staff. With a staffing firm, you don’t need to conduct time-consuming interviews or go through pages of applications; instead, you receive qualified staff on demand. Always Prepared with Possible Candidates if Needed Unexpected absences happen, particularly if you have staff with children. Sudden absences can take a toll on your company and put you in a bind, unable to find a qualified temporary replacement. A staffing firm can have someone on standby, and your employee can be replaced on short notice, allowing them to deal with their emergency and for your company to still meet deadlines. How Collier Legal Search Can Help Collier Legal Search is a recruiting firm that offers solutions for your staffing needs. We can provide qualified legal administrators, IT professionals, attorneys at law, law firm partners, legal support professionals, and office personnel for your company when you need them. Our pool of qualified temporary workers can save you time and money while offering uninterrupted service to your clients with skilled, experienced workers. Contact Collier Legal Search today to find qualified professionals to build your team and improve efficiency at your law firm.

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The “G” in ESG – Governance

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As the cultural climate shifts in the 21st century, focusing on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors is essential to every company’s success. Businesses need ESG-driven policies to thrive, including environmentally friendly operations, socially-conscious hiring processes, and transparent decision-making regulations. Law firms must lead the charge in creating and enacting ESG elements. If you run a law firm, hiring ESG experts is vital to help your firm develop ESG policies and support your clients in doing the same. ESG in Law Firms Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is a broad set of metrics, practices, and policies organizations use to operate. 58% of corporate studies regarding ESG show a positive correlation between a company’s financial performance and implementation of ESG factors. The G in ESG refers to the roles, processes, and rules that guide a company’s operations and the decisions made by its board members. Strong governance policies help mitigate issues like corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governance is vital for reducing risk and ensuring protection against mismanagement. Law offices must hire and retain ESG experts to help their clients and themselves mitigate risks. The “G” in ESG Governance policies related to several areas of corporate operations, including: ● Decision-making ● Policy-making ● Distribution of rights ● Distribution of responsibilities Participants affected by governance policies include a company’s stakeholders, shareholders, directors, and managers. Governance affects how the board of directors is structured and how much a company pays its top executives. This factor also plays into the monitoring and oversight policies used to resolve conflicts of interest between company policies and when the board of directors disagrees on an issue. Governance is especially relevant in today’s climate. As political, social, and cultural attitudes change, solid governance policies can prevent problems for your law firm, your clients, and their businesses. How to Quantify Good Governance Policies Companies looking to quantify governance can track specific criteria and data to estimate an economic dimension score (EDS). The EDS is a comprehensive measurement of governance metrics that you can use to understand how a company performs on governance issues. Estimating the EDS involves monitoring and quantifying information from the following areas: ● Corporate governance Put strong policies in place regarding board structure, compensation, and ownership. Also, look at policies that encourage diversity, effectiveness, and experience within the company’s organizational structure. ● Codes of conduct Good governance includes putting procedures and systems in place for identifying and dealing with corruption and bribery. Also, consider how to handle reporting breaches when they occur. ● Risk and crisis management Consider the company’s risk and crisis management policies. How effectively can the company handle risks from internal or external sources? How do the policies deal with liability in the short and long term? Identify policies that allow for stress training and proactively identify and deal with emerging risks. ● Supply chain management Strong governance policies encourage supply chain awareness and implement a supplier code of conduct. They also integrate other ESG factors into the supply chain to promote socially conscious ideals and environmental considerations. ● Tax strategy A company’s governance must include policies regarding taxes. Policies should outline a beneficial tax strategy, ensure proper tax reporting, and promote year-long tax governance to avoid problems during filing. ● Materiality Materiality refers to the governance policies surrounding long-term value creation and the metrics used to report these details. Good governance encourages transparency in reporting future value creation. ● Policy influence Strong governance regarding policy influence includes policies that encourage disclosing large contributions to businesses that influence policies. It also includes adherence to regulations and legislation. ● Impact measurement and valuation Governance policies must help the company assess programs for social needs and how these are impacting society more broadly. They should also account for the social impact that programs may have over time and how to price them into operations. Lack of Governance Policies A lack of solid governance policies can lead to serious issues within a company. Most corporate scandals occur because the business didn’t have or didn’t adhere to governance policies. For instance, Facebook’s misuse of data and the ensuing scandal resulted from a lack of transparency and negatively impacted the company’s shareholders. Not having governance policies in place leaves companies prone to mismanagement. Scandals or risks resulting from this mismanagement can be costly to stakeholders and deter investors who want to protect themselves from scandal. Law Firms Can Help Law firms can help their clients implement ESG elements into their business operations. You can help your clients focus on ESG by: ● Helping establish governance policies ● Creating ESG assessments ● Identifying metrics to track governance performance ● Developing consistent, uniform reporting channels ● Setting an example by implementing strong ESG policies in your law firm Find ESG Experts for Your Law Firm Future-proof your law firm by hiring an ESG expert today. Collier Legal can match your law firm with a qualified candidate knowledgeable in all areas of ESG to ensure your firm enacts up-to-date policies regarding social, environmental, and governance issues. Contact Coller Legal today to find the perfect candidate for your firm.

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Legal Trends in 2021

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The legal industry saw its share of disruption from the coronavirus pandemic. To survive the downturn, many firms instituted pay cuts, layoffs, and furloughs. After 12 months of making do with less, 2021 may be the year where law firms see more of everything: More Work Many companies conserved cash and delayed pursuing legal action during the COVID-19 pandemic. As businesses reopen and scale back up, they will call on legal firms to rewrite old contracts and draft new agreements. Litigation and legal work is rapidly increasing in every practice area from insurance to complex commercial matters (and everything in between). When restrictions end and business returns to normal, law firms can expect to see a flood of work in 2021. More Legal Spending More legal work and litigation means that spending on outside counsel will likely increase as well. In addition to new cases, companies that have put off legal activities will need to clear their backlog. Some industry experts predict that spending on outside counsel will increase by more than 5 percent in 2021. This spending would be the most significant increase in more than ten years. Some firms in high-demand practice areas have even been able to increase their fees moderately. More Opportunity for Newer/Smaller Firms The increase in litigation means that there will be more work for all firms, from the AmLaw100 to solo practitioners. Established firms with name recognition will probably take a larger piece of the pie, but mid-sized firms may have an opportunity to get their foot in the door. Increased litigation across the board will force corporate legal departments to hire firms they’ve never worked with before. The pandemic also spurred firms to become more open to partnerships and collaborations with other firms. More than half of large firm leaders said they already have or plan to implement new alliances in the coming months. More Competition As work rebounds and the economy returns, there will be greater competition at all levels. The number of legal professionals returning to or entering the job market means that competition among attorneys will heat up: The economy added 4,800 legal services jobs in January after months of stagnant growth 94% of firms are bringing back furloughed employees or expanding hiring Graduating law students will enter the market after a year of delay At the firm level, expect aggressive competition among law firms. Although there will likely be plenty of work to go around, many firms will grab as much work as possible to ensure survival. More change The legal industry is not known for being on the cutting edge of change. The pandemic forced law firms to embrace technology and unconventional approaches much faster than they would under normal circumstances. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, the entire industry has little choice but to continue to become more agile, more technologically adept, and more open to innovation. The 75 million Baby Boomers approaching retirement will also spur change. This massive demographic shift will impact the legal sector as seasoned attorneys leave or reduce their hours. The younger generation will bring more technology and innovation as they step into vacant leadership positions. How Collier Legal Search Can Help Collier Legal Search is a full-service legal staffing company. We place well-credentialed partners, associates, and legal professionals at every level in law firms and corporations. Our experience, connections, and unique approach to building our candidate database deliver consistent results on which our clients can depend. We are committed to the success of our clients and our candidates. Find out what we can do for you. Contact us at 832-239-5253.

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Legal Network for Contacts, Clients & Candidates

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How are you growing your legal network? Build your legal network! This mantra is drummed into attorneys from law school onward. Associates dutifully attend events and collect business cards. Back at the office, they send out “friend” requests and consider their network built. Established attorneys tend to stick with the same circle of contacts for years, sometimes decades. Although LinkedIn and Facebook allow us to connect with hundreds, if not thousands of people, they are not dependable networks. Online connections can’t replace the personal contact needed for lasting professional relationships. Benefits Stronger business relationships – Meeting your contacts in person is more powerful than communicating through social media. Stay on top of industry trends – Direct communication with your peers is the best way to exchange ideas and learn about business or employment trends. Build your niche – Consistently attending the right events will help to get your name and face known. You can then build your reputation as a helpful expert in a specific area. More client referrals – If you are sincere in your efforts to help, and generous with your knowledge, you will be top of mind when opportunities arise. Solve a dilemma – A diverse network can answer unusual questions, or point you in the right direction. Find new hires – If your firm is looking for talent, networking can help fill the candidate pipeline. Tips Start by giving – If you lead with the intent to get something from other people right away, your efforts will fall flat. Take the time to listen, ask meaningful questions, and share useful knowledge. Mix and mingle – Don’t stick together with familiar faces at an event. Not only do you lose opportunities to meet new people, but a tight-knit group appears unapproachable. Be a matchmaker – Not in the romantic sense, of course! Connect your contacts with each other and help grow their networks. Set targets you can meet – Connect with one person each week, have lunch with prospective clients twice a month, or attend an event once a quarter. Targets Internally Most people don’t think about networking within their company. The truth is, knowing people at all levels of your firm is critical in developing your career and establishing a strong legal network. Make an effort to grow entry-level to executive relationships. Legal Network Arena Take advantage of CLE programs, events, and specialized groups offered by your local and State Bar Association. Branch outside of your practice area to meet lawyers in other specialties. Join organizations such as The Association of Corporate Counsel. ACC is a global community of more than 40,000 in-house counsel that provides resources and networking opportunities. Meet legal recruiters. A recruiter should be part of your network at all times. Good legal recruiters have extensive connections and knowledge about current trends and the state of the market. Industry & Trade Legal Network Whether it’s banking, energy, construction, or healthcare, trade, or industry groups are representing your niche and should be added to your legal network. Community & Social Building your legal network is not completed merely through the workplace. Valuable contacts are made on the sidelines of a little league game, at church, or through volunteer projects. Full-Service Legal Staffing You Can Depend On Collier Legal is a full-service legal staffing company. We place well-credentialed partners, associates, and legal professionals at every level in law firms and corporations. Our experience, connections, and unique approach to building our candidate database deliver consistent results. We are committed to the success of our clients and our candidates. Find out what we can do for you. Contact us at 832-239-5253.

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