Corporate Legal Spend with Outside Counsel is Increasing for 2018

I’d like to share some interesting insights from a recent article about Altman Weil’s 2017 Chief Legal Officer Survey.¹ Overall it is good to hear that for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, corporate legal spend with outside counsel is increasing. However I found the last two points of the article particularly interesting.  

The first point: "The most frequently used efficiency tactic was a greater use of technology tools..." With technology advances helping to reduce the population of documents requiring review (the most expensive part of discovery), I believe this trend will continue to be a big factor in driving efficiency.

I find the second point to be very interesting and still a bit of a mystery: "Outsourcing to non-law firm vendors scored highest in effectiveness to achieve efficiency and cost control, but was one of the least used tactics."  While the article does not go into detail on what services legal departments would outsource, it clearly illustrates that some are hesitant to use non-law firm vendors. Is this because they find it easier to just let the law firm handle additional vendors if needed? Is it because they are uncomfortable with forcing their outside counsel to work with certain pre-selected outsourced vendors?  Regardless the reason there is clearly some opportunity to gain efficiency and cost control by working with providers like Canon Discovery Services.

Feel free to visit the Legal Services page of our website. There you will find information on how Canon Discovery Services can help corporate legal departments reduce discovery costs, increase data security and streamline document reviews. Additionally, you can download content highlighting industry trends and best practices including case histories, white papers and more.

1. Reisinger, Sue (2018) “General Counsel Looking to Increase Outside Counsel Spend in 2018,” Corporate Counsel, January 2, 2018