Corporate law clients prefer in-house work
It is hard times for Big Law which is the business of providing legal services via independent professional partnerships. The examples of well-known brands such as Patton Boggs of surviving on their own or the collapse of partnerships such as Dewey & LeBoeuf and Howrey, speak for themselves.
A corporate conference organizer, Consero Group, underscores that in-house general counsel gives budgets a boost and also offers the possibility of valued work from dedicated staffs rather than from outside firms.
According to a new survey of general counsel, 84 percent of participants told they’re not delegating more of their company’s work to outside counsel than they did 12 months ago. Furthermore, 58 percent are seeking to tighten expenditures by demanding that outside counsel offer alternative fee arrangements rather than the traditional hourly rates.
The findings illustrated by Consero, are based on a sample of 1000 companies, 57 of those in-house attorneys responded.
Fifty-one percent noted an increase in their legal department’s budget over the past year, while 44 percent said they’d expanded their staffs. “These increases are a positive sign that the level of resources available to legal departments is on the rise, providing General Counsel with the budgetary and staff resources they need in order to navigate the increasingly complex legal risks and liabilities of the business,” Paul Mandell, Consero’s chief executive, said via e-mail.
The report could be considered as a positive sign for corporate legal. However, the news are not that good for the law firms which rely on fees from those corporate departments.
Source: businessweek- Corporate law clients prefer in-house work
