In-House Counsel Vote 'No Confidence' in Firms, Shrug Off Talk of New Legal Model
Chief legal officers surveyed are skeptical about all the talk at law firms about changing their model for the delivery of legal services.
About 75 percent of CLOs gave law firms low marks when asked how serious law firms are about changing their legal service model to deliver greater value to clients, according to a survey by legal consulting firm Altman Weil. At the same time, in-house lawyers are taking steps to tighten their own belts by laying off lawyers and cutting back on outside legal work, the survey showed.
The CLOs were asked to give firms a score ranging from a low of 0 to a high of 10 to indicate how serious they think they are about changing their legal models, according to an Altman Weil press release summarizing the June survey findings. Only 5 percent gave firms a score between 8 and 10, indicating the CLOs believe the firms are serious about change. Twenty percent gave firms middle scores of 5, 6 or 7. Another 75 percent gave law firms a rating between zero and 4, indicating the CLOs believe the firms have little or no interest in change.
Altman Weil principal Dan DiLucchio says the survey (PDF) was designed to learn whether the talk of change was being translated into action. “This is a dramatic vote of no confidence from chief legal officers,” he said in the press release.
The survey was sent to 1,222 general counsel and chief legal officers; 183 responded.
The survey highlights the financial problems that are affecting in-house legal departments. Forty percent of those surveyed planned to send less work to law firms this year, up from about 26 percent last year. In the eight prior years that the survey was conducted, the number of legal chiefs planning to reduce outside legal work never rose above 20 percent.
About 27 percent of the respondents reported laying off in-house lawyers this year, and another 9 percent said lawyer cuts were likely or possible.
“This combination of inside and outside reductions means not only that in-house lawyers will assume greater workloads, but also that chief legal officers will need to become more strategic about triaging work, allocating resources, and, in some cases, tolerating higher levels of risk,” DiLucchio said.
