Coming into 2009, law firm leaders were worried, and they got more worried as the first quarter progressed, according to data from Citi Private Bank's Managing Partner Confidence Index. Seventy-one percent of the respondents to Citi's first-quarter MPCI believe that demand for legal services will be flat or down in the next 12 months, compared to 66 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. The same was true for profits: In the first quarter of 2009, 71 percent of respondents predicted that 2009 profits would be flat or down, versus 54 percent in fourth-quarter 2008.
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