South Florida Legal Services Report: September 2026

This report covers the market for legal services in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties. It looks at the main sources of demand: personal injury, immigration, bankruptcy, federal civil and criminal work, and family law. It also looks at the supply side of the market, meaning law offices, lawyers, pay and prices. The figures come from public data published by federal agencies, courts and counties. The immigration court figures are counts taken from the court system's public case data file. Each figure is labeled with the period it covers, and several of those periods are well before this month.

Key findings

• Traffic crashes killed 742 people across the four counties in 2024, a level 5.4% higher than in 2019, and pedestrians made up 28.4% of those deaths.
• Miami-Dade recorded 1,211 crashes that killed or seriously injured someone in 2025, down 20.6% versus 2019.
• The Miami immigration court had 284,352 open cases at the start of September 2026, 9.2% of the national backlog, and 58.3% of those cases had no attorney appearance on file.
• New proceedings at the Miami immigration court fell 34.1% in the twelve months to August 2026, while intake at the Krome detention court ran 91.3% above 2019.
• Southern District of Florida bankruptcy filings rose 13.7% in the twelve months to June 2026 (14,933 to 16,975), and Chapter 11 filings rose 35.8%.
• Federal civil filings in the district rose 28.2% (9,280 to 11,894), and personal injury and product liability suits within them rose 36.0%.
• Illegal entry and reentry defendants in federal court rose 51.4% in a year, even though total new federal criminal defendants were down 28.6% versus 2019.
• Producer prices for U.S. law offices rose 7.8% in the year to August 2026 and are 50.8% above August 2019.
• Average annual pay at Miami-Dade law offices was $156,024 in 2025.

Crashes and injuries: the base for personal injury work

The latest complete federal fatality data is for 2024, which is now well behind us, but it is still the best picture of how many serious crash cases the region produces. Traffic crashes killed 742 people in the four counties that year. That was a fall of 1.9% from the year before (756 to 742), yet deaths remained 5.4% higher than in 2019, when the count was 704. Statewide, Florida recorded 3,138 traffic deaths in 2024, which was 8.0% of all U.S. traffic deaths. For an injury firm, this means the most severe end of the caseload eased slightly in the latest year but is still larger than it was before the pandemic.

• Total, all victim groups742 deaths
• Pedestrians211 deaths
• Motorcyclists157 deaths

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System

The mix of victims is as important as the total. In 2024, 211 pedestrians died in crashes in the four counties, 28.4% of all traffic deaths there, and 157 motorcyclists died, 21.2% of the total. Taken together, a large share of fatal cases in South Florida involve people who were not inside a car. A firm that describes its practice only in terms of car accidents is describing a smaller part of the actual caseload.

Palm Beach County publishes crash counts for all crashes, not only fatal ones, and the latest year available is 2024. The county logged 49,294 traffic crashes in the twelve months to December 2024. That was up 0.9% year over year and 11.1% above 2019, when there were 44,382 crashes. Those crashes injured 15,917 people, and 12.2% of them were hit-and-run crashes. For firms working in the county, volume is still rising slowly.

Miami-Dade offers a more recent year and a different direction. The county recorded 1,211 crashes that killed or seriously injured someone in the twelve months to December 2025. The preliminary estimate puts that at 9.4% lower than a year earlier, and the count is 20.6% below 2019, when it was 1,526. Pedestrians were involved in 19.8% of those crashes. Workplace injuries form a separate pool of claims. Preliminary OSHA data shows that 20,355 Florida workplaces filed injury summaries for 2025, reporting 71,038 recordable injuries and illnesses, and 21,280 of those involved days away from work.

Immigration courts: a large backlog with thin representation

The immigration court data is the most recent in this report, and it is all preliminary. According to the case file dated at the start of September 2026, the Miami immigration court had 284,352 open cases, which is 9.2% of the national backlog of 3,090,890. Florida's four immigration courts (Miami, Krome, Orlando and Bradenton) carried 510,111 open cases between them. The Krome detention court in Miami had 1,260 open cases, a small number compared with its intake.

284,352 casesOpen cases

Source: Executive Office for Immigration Review

Representation is the figure that matters most for immigration practices. As of the start of September 2026, 58.3% of open cases at the Miami immigration court had no attorney appearance on file, compared with 48.9% nationally. Miami's backlog is large, and a greater share of it is unrepresented than in the country as a whole.

New cases entering the court show a sharp change in direction. The Miami immigration court received 50,293 new proceedings in the twelve months to August 2026, a drop of 34.1% from a year earlier, although intake was still 10.2% above 2019, when it was 45,634. The Krome detention court received 16,759 new proceedings over the same twelve months, which is 91.3% above its 2019 level of 8,762. Asylum applications at the Miami court totaled 31,826, a fall of 60.1% year over year. Of the proceedings the Miami court completed in that period, 22.7% were decided in absentia. Read together, these figures show a shift in the work. Fewer new cases and far fewer asylum filings are arriving at the main court, while detention intake is much higher than before the pandemic.

Bankruptcy: filings rising faster than the national rate

Bankruptcy figures come from the federal courts and run to June 2026. Filings in the Southern District of Florida rose 13.7% in the twelve months to June 2026, from 14,933 to 16,975, which is faster than the 12.1% rise in U.S. filings over the same period. The district is still 5.5% below its 2019 level of 17,960 filings, so the rise is a recovery toward earlier volume more than a new high. The pace also appears to be increasing: filings in January to June 2026 were 8,907, up 15.4% from the same months a year earlier.

• Chapter 79,623 filings
• Chapter 136,899 filings
• Chapter 11432 filings

Source: Federal judiciary caseload statistics

Consumer cases account for most of the growth. Chapter 7 filings totaled 9,623 in the twelve months to June 2026, up 17.1% year over year, and Chapter 13 filings totaled 6,899. Filings with mostly business debts made up 5.9% of cases. Debtors living in Miami-Dade County filed 8,046 cases over the same twelve months.

Chapter 11 is a small category, but it is moving quickly. There were 432 Chapter 11 filings in the district in the twelve months to June 2026, up 35.8% year over year and 63.6% above 2019. For restructuring lawyers, that puts Chapter 11 well past its pre-pandemic level. For consumer bankruptcy firms, the rising Chapter 7 count means more demand, but the district is still below where it was in 2019.

Federal civil and criminal dockets

Preliminary data shows federal civil filings in the Southern District of Florida rose 28.2% in the twelve months to June 2026, from 9,280 to 11,894. Personal injury and product liability lawsuits filed in the district totaled 887, a rise of 36.0% year over year, which is also preliminary. For injury firms, this is a second measure of demand alongside the crash data, and it covers a later period.

Several other categories matter to business owners in general, beyond law firms. Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuits unrelated to employment totaled 1,203 in the twelve months to June 2026. For a shop, restaurant or website operator, that count is one measure of how often businesses are sued in federal court over accessibility. Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuits, which mostly involve wage and hour disputes, totaled 486. Insurance lawsuits went the other way: 298 were filed, down 29.9% year over year.

The criminal side shows a similar split to the immigration courts. Federal prosecutors charged 1,537 defendants in new criminal cases in the district in the twelve months to June 2026, which is 28.6% below 2019. Within that smaller total, illegal entry and reentry charges covered 498 defendants, a rise of 51.4% year over year. The overall caseload is still lower than before the pandemic.

Family law and crime context

The divorce data is older. Florida's divorce rate was 3.0 per 1,000 residents in 2023, down from 3.5 in 2019, but still above the national rate of 2.4. Family law firms therefore have a higher rate of divorce per resident than the national average, though the latest state data shows that rate has declined since 2019.

For criminal defense at the state level, the most recent data is for 2025 and is preliminary. Florida reported 248 violent offenses per 100,000 people, against 329 nationally, based on the agencies that reported to the FBI's crime data system. The state-level figure is lower than the national rate.

Supply: offices, lawyers, pay and prices

Official counts of the region's law offices show a large, stable market. In 2023, the four counties had 8,626 law offices with employees, and together they employed 43,476 people. Miami-Dade County had 146 law offices with employees per 100,000 residents. A second source, with 2025 data, puts the average number of private law office establishments at 9,063, slightly fewer than a year earlier, with 47,501 employees. For a firm owner, this means competition is not growing in terms of the number of offices, but a lot of offices are competing for the same clients.

Beyond firms with staff, South Florida had 11,265 legal services businesses with no employees in 2024, with $1,012 million in combined receipts.

Pay and prices both rose. Average annual pay at Miami-Dade law offices was $156,024 in 2025. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro employed 23,270 lawyers in May 2025, and their median annual wage was $160,320. Nationally, producer prices for law offices, which measure what firms charge, rose 7.8% in the year to August 2026 and are 50.8% above August 2019. Firms have raised their fees substantially since before the pandemic.

What changed since the last edition

This is the first edition of this report, and future editions will track month-to-month movement against these figures. The newest data here is the immigration court case file from early September 2026, national law office producer prices to August 2026, and federal court and bankruptcy data to June 2026. Other figures cover 2025, 2024 and 2023, as labeled throughout.

Methodology and sources

Traffic fatality figures for the four counties and for Florida come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and the latest complete year is 2024. Palm Beach County crash, injury and hit-and-run figures come from county crash records for 2024. Miami-Dade figures on fatal and serious-injury crashes come from county crash data for 2025. Workplace injury figures come from OSHA's injury summary submissions for Florida for 2025.

Immigration court figures come from the Executive Office for Immigration Review's public case data. Open case counts and representation rates are taken from the case file dated at the start of September 2026, and intake, asylum and in absentia figures cover the twelve months to August 2026. Representation is based on whether an attorney appearance form (Form EOIR-28) is on file.

Bankruptcy, federal civil and federal criminal figures come from federal judiciary caseload statistics for the Southern District of Florida and for the U.S. They cover the twelve months to June 2026, plus January to June 2026 for the year-to-date bankruptcy count. Criminal immigration charges refer to illegal entry and reentry offenses under 8 U.S.C. 1325/1326.

The divorce rate comes from federal vital statistics for 2023. The violent crime rate comes from the FBI Crime Data Explorer for 2025 and includes only reporting agencies. Law office counts and employment for 2023 come from the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (NAICS 541110). Establishment, employment and pay figures for 2025 come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Figures on businesses without employees come from the Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics for 2024. Lawyer employment and median wages come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025. Law office prices come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index, to August 2026.

The following figures are preliminary: the one-year change in fatal and serious-injury crashes in Miami-Dade; all immigration court figures (open cases, representation, intake, Krome detention court counts, asylum applications and in absentia decisions); the rise in total federal civil filings; the count and one-year change for federal personal injury and product liability suits; the Florida violent crime rate; and the Florida OSHA workplace injury figures.

Sources

1. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System
2. OSHA injury summary submissions
3. Executive Office for Immigration Review
4. Federal judiciary caseload statistics
5. FBI Crime Data Explorer
6. Census Bureau County Business Patterns
7. Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
8. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics
9. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
10. Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index

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