Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50877
ments in Canada say they expect more combined internal and external legal work in 2010 compared to 2009. However, nearly 80 per cent of those respondents say the work will be done in-house. A major reason for the increase in work for in-house coun- DIY T 50% Simply less work to be done by outside counsel New arrangement with outside counsel 6% 44% More work brought inside sel is the changing nature of regulation and legislation across North America. In-house counsel are seeing those demands in various ways, says Karen Bell, a Toronto lawyer and consultant who works with law firms, and corporate and government legal departments. "Certainly, corporately, they are looking at significant increases in requiring expertise on the regulatory side and the continuing demand placed on them for more compliance," she says. "So they tend to look inside and want to develop their inside expertise because they feel that inside has a better per- spective of how the impact of the regulations flows through the company." Nearly 30 per cent of respondents to this year's survey came from the government ranks. Bell says public legal departments are under the greatest pressure. "In-house legal budgets have been operating fairly lean and mean for some time and that What can you attribute lower outside legal spending to? Our annual corporate counsel survey shows more in-house lawyers are taking the do-it-yourself approach. By Kelly Harris here will be a greater demand for corporate legal work in 2010, but law firms will not likely be reap- ing the benefits according to the annual Canadian Lawyer corporate counsel survey. Nearly 60 per cent of respondents from some of the top corporate and government legal depart- doesn't seem to be changing. They are in the spotlight so they have to be extra cautious about how they are managing their budgets." Canadian Lawyer received 105 survey responses. Respondents' combined corporate legal budgets totalled more than $180 million a year. While not everyone answered every question, the answers we got paint a picture of stag- Rank the most important things that your outside legal counsel can do to improve working relationships with your company. 1 Be more concerned with costs 2 Be more commercial/practical 3 Understand our needs better from a client perspective 4 Be more creative/innovative overall 4 Be more proactive 4 Be more concerned with results nant or tighter budgets and greater workload. The findings of the annual survey reflect those of the 2009 Association of Corporate Counsel chief legal officer survey, which highlighted increased regulatory burdens combined with cost pressures as top issues for senior legal officers. According to our survey, outside legal budgets rose for 45.8 per cent of respondents, while dropping for 20.8 per cent dur- ing the past year. When asked what the top factor was for the reduction in outside legal budgets, half of the respondents who indicated their budgets had decreased said there was simply less work to be done by outside counsel. Fewer than 45 per cent of them indicated it was because more work was being brought in-house. For the coming year, 51 per cent of those surveyed said they expect to see no change in their budgets, while 28.6 per cent expect a decrease in their budgets. The number one strategy employed by legal departments facing a decrease in budgets was, predictably, bringing more work in-house. New agree- ments with outside counsel and a reduced workload are the other most common strategies. Salary cuts and sending more INHOUSE DECEMBER 2009/JANUARY 2010 • 47 Numbers do not always add up to 100% due to rounding