In 2026, the legal market will continue to operate under pressure from factors that are formed far beyond its boundaries. The overall economic and political situation, problems with the sustainability of business models, resource markets and sales markets among our clients directly affect the demand for legal services. Margin erosion, increased tax and regulatory burdens, and high uncertainty are forcing corporations to switch to a mode of systemic optimisation.

This process inevitably affects the legal function within the business. We see a sustainable culture of centralisation, building in-house competencies and total automation of legal and related business processes. A migration of value is taking place: corporations are reducing their external dependence, focusing not on purchasing advice as such, but on reducing the total cost of legal support, which is made possible by the development of AI and LegalTech solutions. In this logic, there is a clear movement towards the conditional "abolition of consultants" — not total, but economically justified in many practices.

The pressure our clients are experiencing is directly reflected in the economics of law firms. The number of high-margin projects is declining, competition for solvent demand is growing, and clients are becoming more price-sensitive. In these conditions, consolidation is becoming not a growth strategy, but a strategy for survival and maintaining stability. In 2026, this trend will continue not only in the classic formats of mergers, but also through more flexible structures - alliances of equal consultants and ecosystem partnerships between legal and other consulting practices, allowing for the distribution of costs and the accumulation of competencies.

All these processes exert direct and, perhaps, the most painful pressure on the marketing management of law firms. The marketing function finds itself squeezed between shrinking budgets, growing partner expectations and the lack of a full management mandate. In 2026, we will see significant cuts in marketing and PR spending: fewer off-site conferences, less investment in classic branding, and a review of internal and HR initiatives that were previously considered mandatory.

A separate challenge will be the positioning crisis. Under pressure from client markets, law firms will actively seek new niches and directions, investing resources in their development. For part of the market, this will lead to a loss of focus, a decline in specialist knowledge and a weakening of client trust. At the same time, demand for professional "positioners" will grow, despite their actual absence from the legal services market as an independent segment.

Against this backdrop, the trend towards productisation will continue – packaging expertise into understandable, reproducible solutions and reassembling service portfolios. Content for the sake of regularity and PR unrelated to business results will gradually fade into the background, although in many firms, marketing managers will still lack the authority, resources, and managerial clout to bring about a full-fledged transformation.

Overall, 2026 is likely to be a year of painful adaptation rather than growth for the legal market. Marketing will cease to be a showcase and will increasingly become a point of managerial tension, where the economic, organisational and positional contradictions of industry players converge.