A brand new benchmarking report gives lawyers per billion Euros for five industries: professional services, high-technology, pharmaceutical, consumer/retail, and manufacturing. The industries’ medians varied by four to one.
When we index the metric for manufacturing as 1, then consumer/retail was 1.74; pharmaceutical was 2.4; high-technology was 2.8; and professional services was 4.1 times as many lawyers per billion Euros. Professional services had only seven reporting companies, but the other industries had ten, 14 and 20 so the data should be reasonably reliable. The data reinforces the conclusion that different industries have different levels of legal intensity.
The source for this data is benchmarking study of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) law departments that collected data for 2008 from 123 departments. Conducted by Laurence Simons, a global legal recruitment firm, and this author, the report is available for a nominal cost from Laurence Simons. The report contains recommendations for most of the benchmarks for how to alter your law department’s metric.