As part of a study conducted for a publication of CPA Global, reported in Legal Strat. Rev., Summer 2009 at V, respondents were asked an ultimate question: “how they would rate the ‘value for money’ they got from external legal spend on a scale from one (lowest) to 10 (highest).” In the event, the average ‘value for money’ score was six. The study also found that in “extremely specialist areas, when a large top 10 firm was used, the average ‘value for money score’ went up to an eight.”
For most work instructed to external counsel, therefore, these respondents were lukewarm about the match between fees paid and value gotten (See my post of July 4, 2009: direction from clients can heavily influence the value of what law firms deliver.).
The high levels of loyalty legal departments exhibit toward their primary law firms dispute this survey’s finding of only modest levels of satisfaction.