Want to know where law firm rates are going as law firms get larger? Rees Morrison has some data over at the Law Department Management Blog.

[via: Clear data on the rising rates of law firms as they grow larger at the Law Department Management Blog]

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A solution to rising legal fees? Or one that will lead to even more new lawyers looking for work?

It’s simple math, according to John O. McGinnis and Russell D. Mangas. The high cost of law school leads to a limited supply of lawyers, and results in big legal bills for clients and few legal services for the middle class.

[via: WSJ column proposes solution to rising legal fees at InsideCounsel]

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Is your law department paying for things it should not be? Cost containment will be a key driver in 2012:

“Whatever does not add tangible value to client projects is overhead that clients should not be directly or indirectly paying for.” That was the aggressive tagline on a slide by Lee Cheng, the general counsel of Newegg.

[via: An in-your-face-firm view of what law departments ought not to be charged for at the Law Department Management Blog]

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An holiday gift for all in-house counsel – law firm rates billing rates are not increasing like they used to:

Large law firms increased billing rates by an average of 4.4 percent in 2011, the third year of modest increases.

[via: Law Firm Billing Rates Increase Only Slightly for Third Straight Year at the ABA Journal]

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Technology startup Sky Analytics opened its law department spending benchmarking service for corporate legal departments this week, with a focus on simplicity.

[via: Startup Analyzes Corporate Legal Department Spending at CorpCounsel]

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Fed-up with “sky-high” fees at outside firms, Jones Lang LaSalle general counsel Mark J. Ohringer says he now spends 75 percent of his budget on non-law firm resources. “I’m law firms’ biggest competitor,” Ohringer said during a program at the 2011 Futures Conference on Friday, “and I don’t think they see it that way.”

[via: ‘I’m Law Firms’ Biggest Competitor,’ GC Says at the ABA Journal]

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As more companies make the push to cut outside spend and bring more legal work in-house, law firms are starting to feeling the crunch.

[via: Study shows rise in law firms’ billing rates at InsideCounsel]

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Legal cost containment doesn’t just mean giving your in-house team more work:

Corporate legal departments are beginning to take a hard line on costs these days, and one of the first places they’re cracking down is in paying for the high hourly costs of first- and second-year law firm associates.

[via: Corporate legal departments refusing to pay for work by first-year associates at InsideCounsel]

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Feeling busier? You are not alone – as corporations bent on lowering legal spending are doing so by increasing the work that you do:

Corporations across America have spent a lot of time trimming the fat during the last several years. But when it comes to their in-house law departments, bulking up the workload is increasingly being seen as the best way to do more with less.

[via: Lowering Legal Spending by Increasing In-House Workloads at CorpCounsel]

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Looking for cost containment tips? Every legal department should be – here are some tips to leverage legal research technology to contain costs. Lydia Flocchini of Thomson Reuters (home of WestLawNext) has some related tips in an article at the Association of Corporate Counsel:

In this ever-changing and leaner economic environment, corporate legal departments expect outside counsel to deliver more effective and efficient legal services at a lower cost. Simultaneously, in-house counsel are investigating expense management initiatives as well as solutions for increasing efficiency and productivity. One way both are achieving these goals is by leveraging cutting-edge legal research technology.

[via Top Ten Tips for Leveraging Cutting-Edge Legal Research Technology to Control Legal Costs and Drive Client Value - Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)]

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General counsel are making it clear – costs are going to be cut and legal services delivery will have to change in the coming years:

Rising demands on businesses to cuts costs will see general counsel dramatically re-engineer their legal functions over the next decade, according to new research from Oxford University’s Said Business School. The report was compiled from interviews with fifty-two general counsel from a range of bluechip businesses in the US and the UK, including Citi, BP, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Shell, HSBC and Sony Ericsson.

[via: Survey of top general counsel highlights panel cutbacks and 'production line' approach at LegalWeek]

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These days, little is of more concern to a company’s legal function than its ability to control the cost of outside legal services. The person who serves as the top manager of a company’s outside lawyers and law firms is often the law department business manager. If performed well, such a position will add significant value to the management of a company’s legal function, says consultant James Wilber, who describes how a manager with the proper skills and authority can be cost-effective.

[via How Law Departments Can Do More for Less]

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Corporations are using fewer law firms because short-staffed corporate legal departments have little time to manage outside firms, not just because consolidating work is cheaper, according to a new law firm survey by BTI Consulting Group. Also, companies’ increasing demands for flexibility in billing, staffing and communicating create opportunities for smaller firms, and BTI research shows the same companies making a marked migration to smaller firms.

[via Corporate Counsel Are Reducing Ranks of Secondary Outside Firms, Survey Reports.]

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Rees Morrison, consultant and blogger, has compiled, organized, commented on, indexed, and back-referenced 471 of his thoughtful posts on outside counsel management.  The 290-page PDF, which you can find much more about on his website, ReesMorrison.com, normally costs $75 but readers of InhouseBlog are entitled to a $15 discount.

 The six chapters cover (1) when do you need outside counsel, (2) how do you find them, (3) what billing arrangements make sense, (4) how do you manage them, (5) how do you evaluate their performance, and (6) what other considerations apply.  Within each chapter, the posts are organized according to a two-level taxonomy.  Write Rees with any questions you have about the blook.

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Is your law department in cost-cutting mode? Los Angeles lawyer Gerald Knapton has been there and done that. He’s an expert in fee disputes and cost containment, and in this economic climate, attorneys with his skills are in high demand:

“I’m busier now than I have ever been,” Knapton told the Daily Journal (sub. req.). Knapton says the reason is the inefficient law firm billing model that charges clients for inexperienced associates. But several others interviewed by the Daily Journal pointed to the economy and said it is leading to an increase in billing disputes.

GCs Give More Scrutiny to Legal Bills, Spurring More Fee Disputes | ABA Journal – Law News Now

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