I’ve been taking stock of the current market in Texas and we are finally seeing a strong trend towards litigation work. After wide-sweeping tort reform in 2003, litigation attorneys have been in much less demand state-wide. Last week, we visited with firms in Dallas, and uniformly across the board the firms were telling us that their litigation practice groups were extremely busy. This is something we have not heard in years.
While it’s easy to focus on lay-offs, we’ve seen what amounts to great news for litigation attorneys in recent weeks. The National Law Journal predicts an onslaught of lawsuits on ballot initiatives on issues like Gay Marriage. They also recently reported on an increase in construction litigation related to failed real estate projects.
Fulbright & Jaworski recently released their 2008 Litigation Trends Survey predicting a litigation and regulatory work spike in 2008. According to Sheri Qualters of the National Law Journal:
Companies’ worries about lawsuits varied according to the company’s size, region and whether the firm is public or private.
Smaller companies, for example, indicated more concern about securities, insurance and real estate litigation than middle-market companies or companies with at least a billion dollars in revenue. Private companies worry more about contract, labor and personal injury lawsuits than public companies.
Lawsuit fears also vary across the United States: California companies have qualms about employment cases; Northeastern companies worry about environmental cases; and Southern companies expressed concerned about class actions and products liability lawsuits.
Litigators, rev your engines.
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