Law Department Management Blog
Of the 564 people who submitted data for the largest benchmarking survey ever, almost two thirds of them (63%) are general counsel. The next largest group of respondents is lawyers who report directly to the general counsel (16%). The third most frequent are law department managers (Chief Operating Officers, 8%).
Among the remainder are lawyers who do not report directly to the general counsel (4%), others in the legal department (paralegals, admins 6%), and a scattering from each of Finance (2%), Procurement (1%), Compliance, Marketing & Communications, and Human Resources.
This data from May 23rd makes several points.
GCs care about benchmark metrics and will take a few minutes to enter their data in order to obtain data. To be fair, most of the publicity for the survey, including emails, was aimed at general counsel. Also, they are not technophobes, we can infer. Many of them undoubtedly delegated the simple task to someone on their staff.
GCs know their department’s fundamental data. Some subordinates did not provide complete information.
Administrators know everything!
Other functions care about legal staffing and spending, notably finance (and its subset of purchasing), compliance and human resources. Oddly, however, procurement has barely taken advantage of this offering.
Many people care, as evidenced by the wide range of participants.
Join nearly 500 other law departments. Take part in the benchmark study by clicking here for the confidential, online survey that asks for fundamental 2009 metrics of staff and spending.