[T]his year’s Global 100 survey suggests that conditions for the world’s largest law firms are getting even more challenging. Total Global 100 revenue rose just 2.8 percent in 2016, to $99.3 billion—the lowest annual gain since the recession and the second consecutive year of slowing growth. (Group revenue is still likely to pass $100 billion next year for the first time ever, however, requiring an increase of just 0.7 percent to hit that milestone.)
Having fallen by 2.1 percent in 2015, the group’s average revenue per lawyer (RPL)—a key measure of law firm health and efficiency—remained essentially flat last year, at $813,000. Global 100 RPL has increased by just 5.7 percent over the six years since the end of the recession—far below the rate of inflation.
An even more alarming picture is emerging at the bottom line, with total net income growth plummeting from 8.6 percent in 2015 to just 2.7 percent last year.
