In-House Counsel

In-House Legal Departments Don't Understand 'The Facebooks'

More work is flowing in-house, but there are trends they may not be hip to yet.

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That legal departments are bringing more and more work in-house is a long-running trend. Last year, legal departments reported bringing the majority of their legal work in-house and all signs suggest that trend isn’t reversing itself any time soon. A whopping 69 percent say they handle more than half of their company’s litigation work.

That’s one of the big takeaways from this year’s In-House Legal Benchmarking Report from Exterro. But whether in-house departments are taking on more work out of cost-based necessity or simple convenience, the report reveals that legal departments are feeling increasingly confident in their processes. Some 65 percent of legal departments surveyed said they consider themselves structured, managed, or optimized in terms of legal project management maturity — hardly a good sign for firms hoping this in-house trend would hit a wall and demand for outside legal counsel would tick back up. With legal departments making the investment in project management — not to mention the investment in tech solutions — they’re pretty clearly in this for the long haul.

Also of note is the diversification of outside counsel employed. The semi-apocryphal Mad Men-style past where clients used one firm for every legal matter is chipping away. Only 22 percent of respondents use a single outside legal provider, with 69 percent using between 2-10 for their legal needs. It’s an increasingly competitive world and firms need to get out there to secure their niche of a client’s business.

But the stats that jumped out to me from this report are all about document control:

86% of legal teams feel some level of confidence that employees will preserve ESI in response to a legal hold, but nonetheless, 43% still collect to preserve.

That seems appropriately cautious. However, it seems that in-house counsel aren’t too sure about all these Snapchattings and Tweeterists:

Only 29% of legal teams collect mobile data most or all of the time and only 14% collect social media.

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Social media may not play into a lot of legal issues, but from harassment and discrimination matters to legal fights over corporate public statements, social media seems relevant at least more than 14 percent of the time. And 18 percent of respondents say they never collect social media. With Elon Musk getting slapped by the SEC over Tweets, one might think in-house counsel would be getting a little more concerned about what’s happening out there.

Check out the full report at the link below. Some very interesting insights for anyone working in-house or trying to capture that work.

2018 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report [Exterro]

Earlier: New Study: GCs Have Brought The Majority Of Work In-House

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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