While a return to the legal industry’s pre-2008 halcyon days remains out of reach, law firms should expect to see the modest positive momentum they experienced in the second half of last year extend into 2014, according to a report produced by Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group and Hildebrandt Consulting.

The nine-page client advisory [PDF], which is to be released Monday, notes that though growth in demand for legal services was down 0.6 percent at the end of 2013’s third quarter, that figure actually represented an improvement compared to how the industry fared in the year’s first two half. The advisory’s authors also cite the 2.7 percent growth in revenue across the industry through the year’s first three quarters—which they link in part to modest rate increases—as proof that 2013 ended with positive momentum.

The advisory draws from Citi’s Law Watch database, which includes survey results from, among others, 84 Am Law 100 firms and 54 Second Hundred firms, and from Thomson Reuters’ Peer Monitor Index, which includes data from 53 Am Law 100 firms and 37 Second Hundred firms. It does not contain fourth quarter data.

The advisory predicts that last year’s moderate growth in demand for legal services is likely to continue in 2014, especially if an expected uptick in global economic activity spurs an increase in transactions. The authors specifically anticipate that firms will see rising demand in their energy, regulatory and real estate practices.

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Citing these figures, the advisory warns that the changes in demand are not cyclical and that the industry has experienced “a fundamental shift in the market for legal services, resulting in a changed and more muted demand environment for law firms.”

And though firms have spent the past six years trimming head counts, paring expenses and offering clients discounts, the authors say they will continue to strain to create healthy profit margins. By now, the advisory states, firms must tailor their expectations for only “modest demand growth” and sharpen their focus on pursuing at least one of three strategies for increasing revenue: organic growth, lateral acquisitions and law firm mergers.

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