The ABA Tries to Figure Out What's Hot and What's Not

About twice a year, if it is lucky, the ABA gets a marketing firm to try and predict the hot and not-so-hot trends in the legal profession. The latest report was produced in December 2007 and the ABA recently disseminated it to all law school deans. This reporter was able to obtain a copy of the ABA report, a link to which is under "CSO Resource Materials" along the blogroll to the right, and a few of the report's conclusions are below. Remember, this purports to shed light on trends on a large scale (although the reference to Phoenix as being the sole "hot" city in the United States is kind of funny), and local market conditions could easily establish that the report's conclusions are misleading.

* Hot areas of practice: Intellectual Property, Immigration, Labor & Employment, Corporate Investigations, Complex Litigation, Global Warming, Domestic Relations/Family Law, Pro Bono, Estate Planning & Administration, Elder Law, and Animal Law.

* Hot Geographical Markets: China; Dubai of United Arab Emirates; Spain; and Phoenix, AZ.

* Getting Hot: Mediation, Libel, Foreclosures, Art Theft & Fraud, Bankruptcy, Insurance Coverage and Post-arbitration Litigation.

* Cooling Off: Structured Finance/Securitization and Mergers & Acquisitions.

* Cold: Medical Malpractice and Workers Compensation.

So, there you have it. Are you a believer?