Corporate law departments are spending more on internal budgets than on external law firms, according to research by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), a global organisation of more than 40,000 in-house lawyers.
Complex litigation is the most common work to outsource. One-in-five general counsel who expect a reduction in outsourcing said they will increase the number of in-house lawyers in the year ahead.
Moreover, the percentage of general counsel whose companies have designated legal operations staff has more than doubled, and one-third of chief legal officers around the globe say their companies have been targeted by regulators. These regulatory concerns were particularly high for chief legal officers based in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Latin America/the Caribbean, where 44% and 41% have been targeted.
