Written by Wang Houlong, a lawyer at Shandong Chishan Law Firm, on April 2, 2024
This year's economic downturn has reduced the amount of money in people's pockets, so pay attention to saving money. The lawyer's business is getting tougher. The demand for legal services has not decreased, and there are signs of increasing. But people's ability to pay legal fees is waning. This also means that the number of cases represented by lawyers has decreased overall, and the total amount of fees charged has certainly decreased.
Since the end of last year, I have been predicting that this year's case fees will be reduced by about 20 or 30 percent, and this year, based on the performance of the first quarter, the total amount of fees this year may be reduced by 30 percent compared with the previous year.
Judging from the performance of the whole year last year, it is not that the first half of the year determines 890 percent of the annual performance, but that the performance of the second half of the year accounts for the main part, and the performance of each month of the year is relatively balanced.
I always feel that the next four to five years will be a time of great waves for the legal profession. Those lawyers with weak professional ability will be further eliminated.
By the end of this year, the number of practicing lawyers in the country will reach 750,000, and this number of practicing lawyers should have reached its peak. Although the number of lawyers will continue to increase in the future, the number of people who are eliminated will increase compared with the number of people who have withdrawn from the legal team, and the overall number of lawyers will shrink rapidly.
The myth that law firms don't go bankrupt will be shattered. The charging power of a few lawyers in a law firm is often not enough to support the simple reproduction of daily life.
The ability of the partners of a law firm to generate income determines the ability of the law firm to operate. Generally speaking, the business ability of the partners should be very good, and should be enough to support the daily simple reproduction of the law firm; however, the performance of the partners of some law firms is also very poor, and the annual revenue cannot even be guaranteed for their own survival, and they are pulled up by those who have better personal business, and when the operating expenses of the law firm are evenly distributed, they have no economic ability to bear these costs. According to my observation, each partner needs to bear at least 60,000 or 70,000 yuan a year, and some may need to bear hundreds of thousands of yuan, so that some partners will not be able to do it, resulting in the collapse of the law firm.
The legal profession is becoming more and more difficult to operate. Whether it is an individual lawyer or a law firm, there are business difficulties.
The traditional business of lawyers and the increasingly fierce competition in the lawyer industry have also disrupted the legal service market to a certain extent. In the future, the state should strengthen the supervision of legal service companies and promote the unification of the legal service market.
I have a few ideas: 1. Reduce the standard of legal service fees to meet the demand for low-end traditional legal services. In particular, it has a supportive and promoting effect on young lawyers. 2. Open up new markets for legal services to meet the needs of economic activities and the people's protection of rights.
Litigation is a high cost and not something that everyone can afford.
The government's legal aid is not fully covered, and the government's financial resources are also tight. Is it possible for law firms to organize certain legal aid activities for the society in the name of law firms, which can further promote social fairness and justice, and at the same time expand the popularity of law firms?
