Seasonality, or short seasons, as a possible artifact in some benchmark results

In addition to General Counsel Metrics (GC Metrics), three U.S. organizations collect data from law departments and produce benchmark metrics for all to purchase. ACC/Empsight, American Lawyer Media (ALM), and HBR Consulting set submission deadlines in the late summer and produce their reports a month or two later. On that schedule data will not be included during the last quarter of each calendar year.

Perhaps that limited window for data collection skews the results they publish. Does the truncated season of the other three make a material difference in the benchmark numbers they produce? By contrast, GC Metrics welcomes participation into early January of the following year.