Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50892
INCLOSING For our weekly InHouse news updates go to www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse SEEN&HEARD Satisfaction not guaranteed Survey shows law firms need to work closer with corporate clients. By Jeffrey H. Waugh The Canadian Lawyer/Canadian Lawyer InHouse Corporate Counsel Survey in conjunction with Catalyst Consulting shows the majority of legal departments don't believe the outside counsel help they are getting is anything special. In fact 85 per cent of respondents to the survey indicated the work outside counsel they use most could be done just as well by another law fi rm. In-house counsel responding to the survey, pub- lished in full in the November/December 2008 Canadian Lawyer also said they do not have retainers with 58 per cent of the law fi rms that they use. A lack of customer loyalty, driven mostly by economics, combined with the sense that almost anyone can do their legal work means there's nothing to stop corporate legal departments from taking their business elsewhere. All that should make law fi rms seek ways to improve. However, only eight per cent of the de- partments responding had received a re- quest to complete a written satisfaction survey in the past year. With the amount being paid out to these fi rms, in-house counsel should be expecting top-notch service, which includes law fi rms proac- tively searching out ways to improve the relationship. Opportunities to increase satisfaction levels were also highlighted in the results. When respondents were asked what their legal advisers could do to improve their working relationship, being concerned about costs came in at the top. Not sur- prisingly, most departments want their external fi rms to be more aware of the money they're spending and more trans- parent with the billing. Coming in at number two was for fi rms to better un- derstand the needs of the company's law department from a client perspective. In terms of who's been getting the OF LAW FIRMS HAVE NOT ASKED THEIR CORPORATE COUNSEL CLIENTS TO COMPLETE A WRITTEN SATISFACTION SURVEY IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS. work, the majority of it isn't being spread around. More than half of the respon- dents said they tend to stick with one or two fi rms to complete their legal work. Thirty-seven per cent are using the ser- vices of three to fi ve different fi rms. According to the survey, the average external legal spend came in at around 34 DECEMBER 2008 C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE How law departments rate their external law firms Our lead law firm is clearly better than its nearest competitor for most of our work. Our lead law firm's nearest competitor could do most of our work equally well. 44% 15% Quite a few firms could do most of our work equally well. 8% Several other firms could do most of our work equally well. 34% $3.6 million, with the Canadian por- tion of that being slightly less, at $3.2 million. The range was diverse though, with spending coming in anywhere be- tween $225,000 to more than $35 mil- lion. The industrial and manufacturing sectors, followed closely by the fi nancial sector, represented the highest spend by industry, with the non-profi t sector hav- ing the lowest totals at around $225,000. The combined external legal spend for all survey respondents totalled more than $181 million. The results also revealed that in-house counsel are spending the majority of their working hours sorting out contract and commercial concerns, which took a clear lead over other areas of focus. Full results of the annual corporate coun- sel survey can be found in the November/ December 2008 issue of Canadian Lawyer or online at www.canadianlawyermag.com/ images/stories/pdfs/Surveys/2008/05CL_ Nov_08_survey.pdf. IH