Cementing a three-year trend, general counsel once again have taken control of their costs and cut their spending on outside counsel last year by 2 percent, according to recently released figures from HBR Consulting’s 2014 Law Department Survey.
“I’ve been reading these surveys and seeing trends for the past 11 years,” said Lauren Chung, senior director in HBR’s law department consulting practice. “And this year’s trend represents what we’ve been hearing a lot: Focus on cost control.”
Chung told CorpCounsel.com that over the past three years she has watched a “steady decline” in the rate of growth of legal spending, from 5 percent three years ago to 3 percent two years ago to only 2 percent this year. She credited the decline to continued cuts in outside counsel spending.
