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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

SECOND (HUNDRED) CHANCE - OK, so clients didn’t flee from the Am Law 50 in 2020. In fact, the top firms just got…toppier, increasing their advantage over everyone else through higher revenue and profit growth, better demand and a strong performance on the lateral market. But, as Law.com’s Andrew Maloney reports, legal market analysts and firm leaders foresee several opportunities for firms outside the Am Law 50, including those among the Second Hundred, to grow this year, including through corporate client rate pressure and clients looking to save costs by divvying up work more systematically. Some big companies are reassessing their law firm relationships this year, looking at breaking legal work into different chunks that could benefit firms further down in the Am Law 200, said Pamela DiCarlantonio, a partner in Major, Lindsey & Africa’s Chicago partner practice group. ”So, it’s not always going to be the top of the Am Law who are the winners,” DiCarlantonio said, noting that potential trend could work to “beef up the middle a little bit.”