Survey: How Law Departments Are Working Smarter

HBR Consulting’s most recent annual law department survey found that most departments had taken steps to curb their outside legal spend, with some success. Outside legal costs accounted for 52 percent of law departments’ total spend, down from 55 percent reported in the previous year’s survey. HBR finds in-house departments needing to contend with two countervailing trends: more responsibility and demand for their services, with heightened pressure to reduce expenses. They are responding with more and better use of technology, re-engineering work processes and, in a significant number of companies, staffing up with “dedicated operations professionals,” typically non-lawyers, thus freeing up senior attorneys to focus primarily on the practice of law.