Canadian Lawyer InHouse

What SeCtor iS your Company/organiZation in? Calgary. ���What we hear from our membership is that the requirements on the legal departments are becoming greater and greater and more work is staying in the department. There���s a reason for that and it���s to keep costs down. I don���t think the equivalent expense for any in-house counsel is going to be $750 an hour and for a good securities lawyer that���s what you���re going to pay.��� Another factor, says Kate Chisholm, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary with Capital Power Corp. in Calgary, is that in her opinion the quality of legal work by internal counsel and external counsel is increasingly becoming equal. ���Except in some specialized areas you can get fairly high quality legal done work in-house versus from a firm,��� says Chisholm. ���I know I can provide legal resources internally for an all-in cost of less than $100 an hour versus what I���m paying external counsel. . . . If you are quite satisfied the quality of work you���re getting internally is sufficient, it becomes sort of an obvious improvement you can make.��� Responses to the survey came from a crosssection of departments with 10.7 per cent from legal departments with $10 million or more in legal spending in the last fiscal year, 21 per cent spent between $1 million and $3 million, 24 per cent spent between $101,000 and $500,000, and 17.8 per cent spent less than $100,000 in legal costs. Half of the respondents were from small legal departments with fewer than five lawyers. Responses came from a variety of sectors: 24.6 per cent from government, 15.4 per cent from industry and manufacturing, 14.2 per cent from financial services, 13.6 per cent from technology, and the balance falling in under services (10.4 per cent), resources (9.8 per cent), professional services (6.2 per cent), and nonprofit (5.9 per cent). Litigation was the No. 1 area of practice corporate counsel outsource at 74.2 per cent but that���s down from 80.2 per cent last year. Employment and labour law was the second highest at 42.9 per cent. Regulatory matters came in third with 31.3 per cent, down slightly from last year which was 36.8 per cent. The size of in-house departments appears to be staying static, with 49.1 per cent of respondents indicating there was no change in the size of their team over the past year, and if the department did grow, 30.8 per cent said it was because there was more work to be done. However 11.8 per cent indicated their departments had shrunk and 8.3 per cent noted growth meant they had filled positions that were left vacant. As in past years, awareness and concern over costs was the No. 1 area corporate counsel identified where firms can improve their working relationships with in-house legal departments at 46.6 per cent, 36 ��� D ec em b er 2012/ January 2013 5.9% non-profit government (municipal, regional, provincial, federal, and First Nations ��� 14.2% finanCial 9.8% 24.6% resourCe-BaseD 10.4% 15.4% serviCe 9% including boards and tribunals) inDustrY/ manufaCturing 6.2% professional serviCes 13.6% teChnologY What WaS the eXternal legal Spend for the Canadian legal department laSt year? 17.8% $101,000-$500,000 24% $501,000-$1 million 14.2% $1 million to $3 million 21% $3.1 million to $5 million 6.5% $5.1 million to $10 million 5.9% more than $10 million 10.7% $100,000 or less are you liKely to implement neW arrangementS to get more value from the firmS you deal With? Yes No 2.7% 6 INHOUSE 37.3.%

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