Your favorite case manager, who’s been with you since the beginning, will retire in the next five to eight years. When that happens, how will you replace their expertise?

Personal injury firms have historically grown by adding more cases, more staff, and more overhead. That common law firm growth strategy is starting to break.

AI is helping firms do more with less, but even the best technology cannot solve a shrinking labor pool.

The Pipeline That Built Plaintiff Law Is Drying Up

The unemployment rate for attorneys in 2025 was 0.8%. It jumps to 1.4% when you include all legal occupations (as of January 2026). The national unemployment rate was three full percentage points higher, at 4.4%, during the same time. 

These numbers tell you what every managing partner already feels: nearly all legal professionals are employed, so the talent required to scale firms is already employed elsewhere: not great for law firm growth strategies that need headcount.

Law school enrollment has fallen approximately 30% from its 2010 peak. The median age of attorneys has increased from 44 to 46 years old over the past two decades. It was 39 years old in the 1980s.

The Baby Boomer partners and senior paralegals who carry institutional knowledge are leaving the profession faster than firms can replace them.

The Old Headcount to Caseload Growth Is Starting to Break

Robert Half’s 2026 research shows:

• 72% of legal leaders plan to increase permanent headcount in the first half of the year. 
• 71% plan to hire more contract or temporary talent. 
• 61% say finding skilled professionals is more challenging than a year ago.

Law firm growth strategies may still spend more on recruiting and salaries, but that does not solve the underlying problem. New hires still require months of training before they can operate independently.

At the same time, senior talent is retiring while junior talent changes firms more frequently. The average legal professional now stays in a role for just two to three years, creating a cycle of constant hiring, onboarding, and retraining.

The Real Answer Is Infrastructure, Not Headcount

For decades, the defense side has had more time, more data, and more technology than the plaintiff side. 

This legal talent shortage is about to widen that imbalance further. 

PE-backed competitors are already building operational models that decouple legal expertise from law firm growth. The plaintiff firms that survive this decade will do the same.

We built EvenUp on a specific conviction about how to do that. We believe that the best legal outcomes come from AI and legal expertise working together.

That belief is the foundation of Pre-litigation as a Service™, or PLAAS™.

PLAAS is staffed by experienced personal injury practitioners and operations leaders who understand how high-performing pre-litigation teams operate.

Firms train us once on their standards. From there, EvenUp handles ongoing training, quality assurance, and performance management. The PLAAS team works directly inside your CMS, follows your processes, and manages the full pre-litigation lifecycle, from claims setup through settlement negotiation.

What begins as an extension of your team becomes scalable operational infrastructure that grows with your caseload without the recurring burden of hiring, onboarding, and replacing staff. It’s essentially an outcome-driven law firm growth strategy.

Glen Lerner is the Founding Partner at Lerner and Rowe. As a firm owner, he’s seen firsthand where the hiring trends are headed. Regarding PLAAS, he puts it plainly:

Our most critical people have been the biggest proponents of PLAAS. EvenUp delivers better case development and moves them off the desk sooner, freeing up our best people to get more value on our biggest cases. I'm getting a better product, making more money, and providing a better service to my clients.

Glen Lerner

Founding Partner

Lerner and Rowe

Sara Waugh is Lead Case Manager at Lerner & Rowe. Similar to Glen Lerner, Sara is managing the shrinking talent pool across their market. Regarding PLAAS, she said:

I don’t have to work extra hours anymore or weigh the experience of the person receiving the file. I know I can move it to PLAAS, and they will dive in right away. It feels like you’ve got rockstar case managers on your team, but they’re not on your payroll.

Sara Waugh

Lead Case Manager

Lerner & Rowe

PLAAS addresses the legal talent shortage with a simple model: a flat fee per case, no referral splits, no open headcount, and no lengthy ramp-up periods.

As experienced legal talent becomes harder to replace, firms that scale operational capacity rather than headcount will gain a lasting advantage.