According to the recently released LegalVIEW Insights report by Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions, the legal services demand has taken a hit in the Q4 2022. While some predict doom and gloom for Biglaw, others see the rebounding economy as an opportunity to recoup a bad Q4 with some timely rate increases. However, the question remains: will ratcheting up the bills finally backfire, or will companies publicly carp about it and then fork over the cash like they do every time?

The report found that despite complaints, law firms haven’t raised rates that much at all. Based on data from corporate law departments and insurance claims departments through the LegalVIEW Data Warehouse, the Insights report found that around 40 percent of timekeepers generally — and approximately 32 percent of the Am Law 100’s timekeepers — received no rate increases at all during the reference period from July 2021 to June 2022.

The mean law firm rate increase was about 5.6 percent and the median was 1.9 percent, hardly bank breaking and well below even the flattening rate of inflation. It is important to note that the data used in the report was collected from corporate law departments and insurance claims departments through the LegalVIEW Data Warehouse.