Brought EEOC work inside (with HR) and saved $200,000

A participant at a Counsel to Counsel session, reported in Corp. Legal Times, Vol. 13, July 2003, stated that she had saved $200,000 a year in outside counsel costs on EEOC-related cases and complaints. Instead of paying outside counsel that amount to handle all the work, the “GC and her department realized the savings by training HR staff in how to investigate and respond to employment-related complaints.”

This anecdote goes to show the power of training clients, with the result that the law department sticks with more complex tasks and reduces legal spending. One might also infer from the estimate of savings that the legal department had tracked its spending in this arena for at least a year or two, and could show the reduction during the year in which HR staff assumed more of the tasks.