Law Department Management Blog
With more than 300 respondents during February, the survey population has already reached impressive proportions. I thank all the pioneers who have helped launched such a successful effort.
As of a week or so ago, the companies in the survey who submitted full data reported 3,960 lawyers on their legal teams. Their total inside legal spend last year was $1.5 billion; total external spend was $2.6 billion. Total corporate revenue reported was a staggering $1.1 trillion (yes, trillion with a “T”).
Since this is a benchmarking survey, let’s state this progress report in terms of metrics. The participants analyzed as of that day had 3.6 lawyers for every billion dollars of revenue, which is a bit low because some of the participants are from subsidiaries that don’t maintain specialist lawyers. The group spent 0.37 percent of revenue on the legal costs they reported, which only includes outside counsel costs in the external spend. External legal spend other than on law firms might something like ten percent to that total, bringing it to around a quarter of a percent of revenue.
A few of the industries that already show significant representation include Healthcare (8), Telecomm (9), Energy (15), Technology (17) and Manufacturing (38).
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