Peer to Peer Magazine

PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA 56 Last decade's recession and a highly saturated legal market have had a massive impact on the legal sector. Firms have had to cut costs to remain competitive while also increasing attorneys' value to clients. There's still more we can do to improve productivity, and automation is the key. NOT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM Many attorneys and partners will welcome stability and confidence in the market, which we have seen return in the last year. Two factors had to align for the sector to experience growth: Higher Fee Income: According to The American Lawyer, aggregate global 100 revenue rose by 4.3 percent last year to a record $88.7 billion — 11 percent higher than the group managed at the height of the boom in 2008. PricewaterhouseCoopers' "2014 Annual Law Firms' Survey" found the number of law firms with increasing fee income is higher now at 80 percent of firms, up 17 percent from last year and more than any time since 2008. Consolidation: In 2014, we saw several significant mergers (e.g., Norton Rose and Fulbright & Jaworski created Norton Rose Fulbright). These mergers reduced the number of aggressive players in the market. Global 100 firms now collectively employ over 112,000 attorneys and 22,000 equity partners — annual increases of 3.9 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. Despite the legal market looking up, there are several major challenges ahead in 2015. Automation To Avoid Productivity Killers FEATURES PRODUCTIVITY KILLERS According to a recent Smarter Working report by Workshare, almost 80 percent of attorneys are "struggling" to meet productivity levels demanded by today's legal profession. Here are common productivity killers: • Email: One of the biggest challenges for attorneys is the onslaught of email. According to an email statistics report by the Radicati Group, a staggering 182.9 billion email messages are sent/ received per day worldwide, a number that's only growing. • Review Cycles: The Smarter Working research exposed several working practices around document review. When asked what holds up progress when working on a document, 51 percent of attorneys said that slow document turnaround and consolidating feedback were top issues.

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