Canadian Business Wire

A new survey finds that law firms enjoying a boom in business. Amongst those polled, 69% of lawyers responded that business was up and their law firms were undertaking more projects and cases that they did last year. By contrast only 6% of law firms reported a drop in business.

Showing the growth in litigation, commercial real estate, and intellectual property were creating high demand for law services, 26% of those surveyed said their law firm business was experiencing "significant increases" over last year.

These findings are from a survey conducted the law staffing service Robert Half Legal. The survey was conducted by an independent research firm and includes responses from 150 lawyers among the largest law firms in both the United States and Canada. Respondents to the survey reported a minimum of three years working in the legal system.

Charles Volkert, executive director of Robert Half Legal says, "Companies are looking to outside counsel to provide support for a growing volume of casework, ranging from large-scale litigation and patent and copyright issues to commercial real estate transactions and mergers and acquisitions."

Volkert added, "Because projects may require special resources, many law firms are hiring legal professionals on a project-by-project basis to quickly access specific skill sets and expertise to handle complex discovery requests and other legal matters that have the potential to overtax current staff."