Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 35 have a feeling it probably has more with the bigger firms and with their bigger cli- ents," he says. This year, 218 law department leaders from Canadian corporations and gov- ernment participated in the Corporate Counsel Survey. On the question of what arrangements they use in addition to the billable hour, respondents indicated they use AFAs (12.7 per cent), flat fees (1.9 per cent), and requests for proposals (1.3 per cent), as well as "other" (6.3 per cent) options. Many said they were using a com- bination of billable hours, RFPs, and flat fee arrangements. Felicissimo is part of the majority of survey respondents who work in legal departments with less than five lawyers — 56.4 per cent — and perhaps carry a little less budget muscle than, say, the big five banks, which have been the primary driv- ers of AFAs including value billing. Of the 12.7 per cent of in-house who said they do use AFAs, 66 per cent said 25 per cent or less of the work they send out falls under an alternative arrangement, while 16 per cent said between 50 and 75 per cent is compensated based on an AFA. Fixed fees for consistent types of work were the most popular AFA with 62 per cent of respondents indicating it was the method they used most, followed at 58 per cent by flat fees for a prescribed phase of work or bundled portfolio of work. Over the last eight years, much of Val- net's work has fallen under the categories of acquisitions and tax as well as filing trademarks and copyright in the United States. For the IP work, Felicissimo has been able to arrange flat fees with external counsel and that's something the firms proposed. "They have flat fees for trade- mark filings, copyrights, etc.," he says. With the immigration firms he works with, charges are flat fees per file. "We're in the process right now of applying to bring someone from Colorado to our office and a mid-size Montreal firm is assisting with the matter and all their fees are flat fees. I really liked that — I've been reaching out often with questions and it's good to know when it's a flat fee. We try to have monthly caps on certain matters, but I proposed a success fee to a German lawyer and he what are the legal areas you send to outside firms the most? sending more work out 9.2 % 21.4 % 20.4 % 49 % the business grew bringing more work into the legal department isolated/ one-off situation which led to higher fees if external spend changed, why? was your external legal spend higher, the same, or lower during the past year as compared to the prior year? higher lower same 36 % 23.6 % 43.8 % 74% litigation 46.2% employment/labour 32.0% mergers & acquisitions 27.8% intellectual property 23.1% securities/corporate finance 22.5% regulatory matters 20.1% tax 18.3% real estate 18.3% general corporate work 16.6% class action 10.7% IT (contracts, licensing, etc.) 8.3% environmental 8.3% immigration 6.5% U.S.-cross border 5.9% other 5.3% privacy legislation 3% advertising/marketing 1.2% risk mitigation (contracts, etc.) is the volume of legal work carried out by your department and external counsel combined likely to grow in 2015 72/5& 49/7& yes no % %

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