Crane on Law by James Crane

The Association of Corporate Counsel 2007 Survey has been released and they accurately reflect what in-house counsel have been routinely telling me. The increased compliance requirements following Sarbanes-Oxley and increasing budget pressures have caused more resources to be directed to in-house attorneys and away from outside counsel.

Some of the general conclusions from the survey include:

In-house counsel are adding more rules and more formalities to their relationship with outside counsel.

One-fourth of in-house counsel is increasing competition among outside counsel, including competitive bidding and discounts for early payments.

A growing number of in-house counsel are utilizing web-based systems to directly collaborate with and monitor outside counsel.

Law departments continue to reduce the number of firms they use based on better rates and better work.

In-house counsel are increasingly using budgets to evaluate performance and set expectations.

Personally, I'm excited to see that corporate law departments are being more proactive and requiring more accountability from outside counsel. For several years, Altep has worked with in-house counsel to make litigation and the associated document management process more transparent and understandable, and it's good to see others getting on board.