Legal departments give law firms strong marks for the quality and responsiveness of their communications and for how they collaborate on strategy, but they ding outside counsel for a lack of transparency.

That's according to a new study from the Association of Corporate Counsel and the litigation platform Everlaw titled "The State of Collaboration in Corporate Legal Departments."

Of the 373 U.S. in-house legal professionals participating in the survey, just 4% said they were extremely satisfied with law firms' transparency into costs and just 7% were extremely satisfied with transparency into law firms' processes.