Mary Nowell, Managing Director, reflects on the national private practice market in 2024 and considers the prospects for 2025
From Mary Nowell
The challenges seen by law firms remained largely unchanged throughout 2024. Geopolitical and economic uncertainty combined to create a highly competitive, cost sensitive market for law firm clients.
As such, we have seen steady, considered hiring.
There have been fewer opportunistic hires, certainly, but there have still been plenty of opportunities available for great legal talent.
Competition
Market competition has meant that law firms have to be agile and react to the ever-evolving demands of their client base.
The top priority for law firms remains the need to provide pragmatic, commercial advice to their clients, in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
This remains the key driver in law firm favourability rankings and, when done well, ensures that they are trusted advisors.
ESG and employee protections
We have also seen ESG (“Environmental, Social and Governance”) take centre stage in 2024, representing a huge opportunity for law firms to be involved in strategic decision making at board level.
Interest in ESG issues has risen throughout 2023/2024, with in-house teams citing this as a real priority.
With climate change and the continuing focus on diversity, equality and inclusion, these issues fall squarely within legal scope. In 2025, this will be even truer as organisations grapple with the impact of “day one” employment rights and the political push in favour of employee protections.
The demand for employment lawyers has increased in the last half of 2024 and this trend looks set to continue, as a direct result.
The rise of AI
This year, BCL was thrilled to participate in Birmingham Tech Week, hosted by Shoosmiths. One of the key topics discussed was the impact of AI and, how it enhances traditional working methods.
Many law firms view AI as a solution to improving efficiency and staying competitive by reducing costs for their clients. In 2024, a reported 80 per cent of lawyers now use Ai in their day-to-day, up from 30 per cent in 2023.
Moreover, it is easy to see why when Generative AI tools can process huge volumes of data in seconds: a task often taking hours, if not days. Technology will continue to develop at pace, so this will remain a hot topic in the coming year.
This will also offer a different path for the tech savvy lawyer looking for an alternative to traditional fee earning, and these opportunities are sure to be on the rise.
Hiring across many disciplines has climbed steadily throughout the last half of 2024 so we move into 2025 full of confidence.
