The report by Beaton Research + Consulting shows that law firms’ business confidence is down, with 37 per cent believing that business conditions are negative, compared to 17 per cent last October. The report also showed the belief that business conditions are positive declining by 13 percentage points in the legal sector, but increasing among the accounting firms. Mark Totaro of Commonwealth Bank said: 'There was a blip at the end of last year and we had been expecting the upward trend to continue, but this last quarter has shown that the top 50 firms are telling us that short-term conditions are really tough.' Source: Australasian Lawyer