Biglaw, In-House Counsel

Are In-House Lawyers Happy With Their Outside Counsel?

Corporate clients want practical legal advice, but law firms aren't giving it to them.

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happy young lawyers thumbs upHow happy are in-house lawyers these days? That’s the question that a survey conducted by In The House, an online association of 26,000 lawyers working for legal departments, sought to answer.

The results seem to be mixed. While in-house lawyers generally like their current jobs better than their old ones (many are Biglaw refugees), they could be made a little happier by the improved performance of their outside counsel. Law360 (sub. req.) has more information:

How pleased were the respondents with the work and service of their firms? Twenty-nine percent answered, “very satisfied” and 62.1 percent said “somewhat satisfied.” Only 8.5 percent were “dissatisfied” and a minuscule 0.9 percent said they were “very dissatisfied. Women were both more enthusiastic — 31.5 percent were “very satisfied” — and more critical — 10 percent were “dissatisfied.”

There is a second, more ominous view of the client-law firm relationship lurking in these results. Responses from seven out of 10 in-house lawyers suggest that there is room for improvement in law firm performance. This means that some firms are less secure in their relationships than they realize and need to increase their efforts to understand the needs of their clients and how clients want these needs to be met.

About 45 percent of respondents had cut ties with a law firm within the past two years, with the top five reasons for dismissal being that the firm was “too expensive,” “unresponsive,” did “bad work,” “didn’t understand our business,” or “worked inefficiently.” Perhaps some responses from in-house lawyers will be helpful in understanding how law firms can improve. Here are a few examples from the survey:

  • “They were non-responsive and overpriced; [I] can get over the latter if work is superb, but not meeting expectations and being overpriced means the end of the relationship.”
  • “The advice was extremely conservative and not practical.”
  • “They didn’t provide clear and concise guidance. We can’t use ‘what-ifs’ and hypos. We need actionable advice and strategy.”
  • “Some outside lawyers are excellent partners who make my team and me better every day. Others go through the motions or put too much onus on me to project manage and cull out results and answers. Business acumen is a much underdeveloped muscle in the law firm world. I think this is also a big factor in why certain law firms can’t seem to crack the value billing, price-sensitive offering demanded by clients. They don’t fully understand what is being asked and what they need to deliver, and they spend time and effort needlessly (and expensively) on things that don’t really move the ball forward.”

Perhaps fewer law firms would be shown the door if lawyers truly listened to what their clients expected of them and then followed through on it. In-house lawyers are in search of practical advice from the lawyers they turn to in times of need, so much so that survey respondents repeatedly said that it was one of the things they’d change about law firms — aside from desperately wanting to kill off the billable hour, of course.

Now that you’ve got some useful information from in-house counsel, try to put it to use. Your firm can only benefit from knowing that it’s not performing up to par. Change your ways and perhaps fewer corporate clients will part ways with outside counsel next year.

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Are Your In-House Lawyers Happy? [Law360 (sub. req.)]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. She’d love to hear from you, so feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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