2012 Kansas Economics of Law Practice Report

The economic survey has been completed!

What is the Kansas Economics of Law Practice Report?

During the spring of 2012, The Kansas Bar Association surveyed the legal community on the economics of law practice considering similar studies undertaken in 2005 and 1997. The objectives of all studies were to derive and report the following:

• Demographics of practicing attorneys, including views on economic sentiment
• Attorney 2011 taxable income arrayed by practice class, gender, field of law, office location, full- vs. part-time status, years in practice and firm size
• Associate, legal assistant, and secretary 2012 annual compensation by years of experience (tenure) and office location
• Prevailing average 2012 hourly billing rates for attorneys arrayed by a variety of indicators, and for legal assistants by years of experience, firm size and office location
• Attorney time allocated to billable and non-billable professional activities
• Fixed expense and gross revenues per attorney and overhead rates associated with maintaining a private law practice by office location and firm size, and
• Contemporary law office management and marketing practices

This information has been organized here to help guide attorneys plan and manage their professional lives. They can compare themselves and their firms against benchmarks/ norms established from aggregating survey data. These benchmarks consider one or more of the following variables: office location, firm size, practice class, area of legal concentration/primary field of law and years in practice. Attention is also given to analysis of gender-specific factors influencing income gaps. Time series information is also provided to denote trends.

Does this report cost anything?

If you are a KBA member, it is completely FREE!

Special Thanks:

We thank Angel Zimmerman for her hard work and dedication in working on and completing this project. We also thank KBA staff members Christa Ingenthron, Deana Mead, Beth Warrington, Ryan Purcell & Meg Wickham for their involvement and hard work in making this happen.

We thank our statistician, Lawrence Stiffman, Ph. D., MPH, for his work in compiling and presenting this information.