Going beyond lawyers per billion – practice area benchmark metrics

In a recent consulting project, we gathered benchmark data from leading companies on their in-house counsel in several substantive specialties: corporate, litigation, intellectual property, and compliance, were included. We normalized those figures against the companies’ revenue, such as IP lawyers per billion of revenue. Even though comparable law departments can have reasonably similar ratios of total lawyers per billion dollars of revenue, their practice area metrics can diverge significantly.

Pursue benchmark metrics deeper than aggregate lawyers per unit of revenue. One approach is to look at the distribution of your lawyers by substantive practice area.