Corporations expand in-house legal departments to cut reliance on elite firms

Evidence

More than 8 percent of lawyers currently work in private industry, frequently in firms involved in finance, insurance, real estate, communications, or manufacturing. Major corporations are most likely to employ lawyers and maintain large legal departments- Fortune 500 firms employ approximately 30 percent of all in-house counsel. The growth in corporate law offices represents an attempt by major companies to reduce legal costs by relying less heavily on elite law firms, at least for more mundane legal matters. Large corporations also recognize that, in the words of one board chairman, “The most active companies now require-or are best served by-the constant availability of counsel who [are] informed on a day-to-day basis of the company’s activities and directions.”*4 When large corporations do litigate, many From an attorney’s perspective, there are both advantages and disadvantages to working in-house. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1064

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Corporate in-house and firm capture of work is shrinking solo practice — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1055; In-house corporate counsel ranks grew more than sixfold between 1951 and 1991 — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1217; Large corporations shifted legal work in-house to cut costs, halving expenses in some cases — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 705