Simple Strategies To Cut Legal Costs

According to a Wolters Kluwer’s legal insights report, legal departments are slow to adopt a variety of simple and minimally-invasive strategies to save costs. Megamatters – legal matters that accrue more than $1 million USD in lifetime costs – are bellwethers for the direction a department’s overall legal spend is heading. If annual megamatter spend rises or falls by even $1 USD, there is a nearly 90 percent chance that the direction of total outside counsel spend will follow. In more than 1/3 of corporate legal departments, if the number of megamatters on the docket is high, the percentage of overall outside counsel spend will be at least double what it is during a “low” year. Investments such as AI powered legal bill review or solutions that automate parts of the M&A process pay long-term dividends. Departments can save on megamatter costs by using technology to create and manage law firm panels, negotiating special panel rates, and discouraging in-house attorneys from hiring off-panel firms.