Law firms—especially small and midsize ones—faced a tough economic landscape in 2015, with sliding revenue and stagnant partner compensation, according to the latest survey of firm finances by ALM Legal Intelligence.
Revenue per partner averaged $468,511 at the 574 firms that responded to this year’s Survey of Law Firm Economics, down from $491,729 in 2014. That 4.7 percent decline is the largest since ALM’s research arm began tracking revenue per partner in 1985.
Even though firms slashed their expenses per lawyer by an average of $8,681 per lawyer during that same period, equity partner compensation rose by less than 1 percent, from a median of $302,260 to $299,999.
“Partner compensation appears to be relatively flat, and that’s consistent with what we’ve been seeing,” said Eric Seeger, a principal of the legal consulting agency Altman Weil. “Demand is soft. Quite a few firms still have more lawyers than work for them.”
