Transactional practices rising, litigation falling
Litigation has traditionally been the largest practice for major firms. But in recent years, litigation practices have been slowly losing ground and transactional practices have risen to compensate.
A new report from Peer Monitor finds that corporate, M&A, tax and real estate work has consistently outperformed litigation practices for the past two years. In fact, billable hours for transactional practices have grown in seven of the eight most recent quarters. At the same time, litigation practices have declined for eleven consecutive quarters and have not been positive since Q1 2012.
While litigation remains the largest practice area for large law firms, its share is shrinking, and the share of the transactional practices is steadily closing its gap with litigation. Together, litigation and transactional practices make up nearly seventy percent of large law firm billings.