denotes premium content | Nov 18 2008 
News
posted 27 Aug 2008
Small firms remain robustly confident
TWO-THIRDS of smaller law firms remain confident of their firm’s prospects over the next six months despite the current economic climate, according to a recent survey conducted by Key Business Finance (KBF), the professional finance arm of Heritable Bank.
The poll of UK firms with between three and 10 partners found 65 per cent felt secure about their firms’ immediate future (a drop of 17 per cent in six months), 42 per cent expected firm turnover to increase over the next six months and 85 per cent expected fee income to remain static or increase.
The survey also revealed almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of firms were not making a point of saving, two thirds were planning on spending the same amount over the next six months and over a quarter (27 per cent) were planning to increase spending on areas such as IT and marketing.
“The law firm market appears very optimistic for the future,” said KBF’s managing director Nick Sanders. “We have though, started to see the effects of the credit crunch and the various threats to the market, such as the Legal Services Act and the legal-aid reforms, starting to bite.”
Indeed, most of the firms surveyed had an overdraft (88 per cent) and 13 per cent claimed they were already putting money aside to finance future business expansion.
