The past year has seen an upward trend in the volume of work shouldered by in-house legal departments. This comes as these teams are making the strategic shift to incorporate artificial intelligence and automation into their work. Yet at the same time, corporate legal departments seem to be taking the significant move of trimming down their spending on hiring external legal counsel.
Interestingly, this surge in workload has been a greater burden on many departments falling upon fewer numbers. A third out of 170 companies involved in a recent Harbor Global study indicated they operated with fewer in-house staff in the current year compared to 2022.
This adaptable yet efficient approach to work comes in spite of the generally expected rise in demand for legal services. However, only 22% of in-house teams are considering expanding their utilization of outside legal expertise to manage excess work, as revealed by the same Harbor Law study.
This is a developing trend, one with potential to significantly impact how in-house legal departments operate. details on this trend and the study can be read here.