Total legal spending and payments for insured litigated matters

Previous posts have discussed several pots of spending that may or may not be included in a law department’s total budget. (July 20 lists several of them and Sept. 4, 2005 praises TLS as a percentage of revenue for its pre-eminent role.)

One outflow pertains to spending on insured matters. If the premium paid by a company reflects in part payments made by the carrier in defense of insured matters, the company’s total legal spending ought to reflect some portion of the premium payments. I am sure reality is much more complex than the previous statement, but the point remains: the total outlays on law-related expenses for a company is undoubtedly larger than law departments report.