For the fifth year in a row, MLA has partnered with the Association of Corporate Counsel to bring you the Law Department Management Benchmarking Report.
The 2024 report is an ideal tool for departments seeking information on the appropriate levels of legal department staffing and structure, spend, work allocation, law firm and ALSP usage, technology, and diversity metrics based on responses from nearly 421 legal departments in 32 countries.
Some of the findings include:
- Legal staffing needs scale significantly with revenue. Companies with less than $1B in revenue employ a median of 4 legal team members, while those exceeding $20B have a median of 158.
- On average, legal departments dedicate 14 percent of their lawyers to litigation and 7 percent of their lawyers to IP.
- Total legal spend also increases dramatically by company size; companies with revenue between $1 billion and $5 billion spend a median of $6 million on legal, while those with revenue between $5 billion to $10 billion spent almost $32 million.
- Outside counsel spend comprises a considerable portion of external legal costs, accounting for an average of 87% of the total outside legal budget.