The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and Serengeti Law released their 8th Annual “Managing Outside Counsel” survey last month, revealing some interesting trends in the inside-outside counsel relationship. 

According to their findings, over the past 8 years in-house counsel have been more demanding of their outside counsel.  The study suggests that in-house has taken on the role of manager to outside counsel to heart and has opted for a variety of measures to ensure competitive productivity.  It shows that while the median spending in-house is at one of the highest levels in eight years, median spending on outside counsel is at its lowest level.  

How in-house counsel is expecting more from outside counsel:

  • engage in convergenceissue competitive bids for new workrequire minimum levels of experience of associates working on their
  • projectsseek discounts for early payment of billssystematically evaluate the performance of their outside counsel

The survey, which is in its eighth year, provided some overall trends observed over the past years. 

  • in-house counsel are setting more rules for their relationships with outside
  • counselin-house counsel are terminating relationships with their underperforming
  • outside counselbudgets are widely used to clarify expectations & monitor
  • performancein-house counsel are more carefully monitoring work that is outsourcedin-house counsel are using more sophisticated technology to track the
  • activities of outside counsel, and have plans to do moreconvergence continues to be common, but often just meets expectationsalthough hourly rates still predominate, many corporate clients are getting
  • discounted ratesalthough in-house were having some effect on keeping the increases in hourly
  • rates low, hourly rates are increasing again, leading to less work going to
  • outside counseloutside counsel spending has been a top concern of in-house counsel, but it
  • is being surpassed by those business activities with legal implicationsin general, in-house counsel have not yet put the necessary systems in place
  • to meet their new reporting obligations

Related Resources:

  • In-House Counsel Becoming Bolder–Requiring More From Their Outside
  • Counsel [PDF] (ACC)
  • Legal Cost-Cutting and Social Networking: Strange
  • Bedfellows (FindLaw’s In House)
  • Hildebrandt Survey Shows Recessionary Effects on In-House
  • Counsel (FindLaw’s In House)

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