Aug 2 (Reuters) - Fish & Richardson said Thursday that it was laying off 14 staff members, the latest in a string of national law firms to disclose job cuts.

The layoffs affect paralegals and litigation support staff positions throughout Fish & Richardson, a 364-lawyer firm based in Boston that specializes in intellectual property law. The firm attributed the cuts, which were effective Tuesday, to clients' "smaller budgets for outside legal services."

"While our caseload continues to grow, client demands for more cost efficiency meant that we needed fewer support personnel for cases than we did in the past," the law firm said in a statement. The 14 people affected by the cuts accounted for less than 2 percent of its total staff, according to a firm spokeswoman.

The announcement by Fish & Richardson followed the disclosure last week of plans to reduce staff at Dorsey & Whitney, a 530-lawyer firm based in Minneapolis, and Fulbright & Jaworski, a 850-lawyer firm in Houston.

"Nationally there is a trend towards thinning out underperfomance," said Kent Zimmermann, a consultant with Zeughauser Group in Chicago.

Demand for legal services fell 0.2 percent in the second quarter, according to a report Friday by Hildebrandt Institute's Peer Monitor Index, which tracks demand as measured by the growth in billable hours. Corporate work fell 2.1 percent, while litigation was flat.

The Hildebrandt Institute is a division of Thomson Reuters.

Dorsey in a statement last week said it was eliminating 20 support staff positions, or about 1.6 percent of its 1,200 headcount. The firm attributed the cuts to improvements in technology, among other factors.

"We can deliver the same high level of client service and responsiveness with fewer staff than was the case just a few years ago," the statement said.

On July 26, the blog Above the Law posted an email memo addressing Fulbright & Jaworski's voluntary severance plan. The email, dated June 29, could not be independently verified but was sent by James Dixon, the firm's executive director. It stated the firm was seeking to "lower our overhead-cost profile" by offering a voluntary severance program for staff members, including secretaries and receptionists.

"These steps will help to strengthen our firm and enhance our competitive position," Dixon wrote.

A call to Dixon was not immediately returned. Neither a spokesman for Fulbright nor its chairman, Steven Pfeiffer, responded to requests for comment.

(Reporting By Nate Raymond)

(An earlier version of this story mispelled Zimmermann.)

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