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Another reason to not mess with Texas: The average total compensation of an in-house attorney in Texas is $377,909, nearly $50,000 more per year than the national average of $321,000, according to recent statistics from HBR Consulting.

Researchers recently broke out the Texas numbers from HBR Consulting's 2017 Law Department Survey released in mid-November. HBR advises law departments on productivity and profitability.

But before Texans start gloating too much, they should know that HBR's data also showed New York's in-house counsel earn an average of $480,596 per year, or nearly $100,000 more than Texas in-house lawyers.

In-house counsel earnings data included salary, cash bonus and long-term incentives. The data came from 424 in-house attorneys across 14 Texas companies from 2016 to 2017. Seven percent of the companies have revenue of $3 billion or less, while 29 percent have revenue greater than $40 billion.

The data showed that legal demand in Texas is running well above the national average. About 92 percent of respondents said their companies' legal needs increased over the past year, compared to 82 percent in the national survey.

But in-house legal departments in Texas do not seem to be spending more or hiring more to cope with that demand.

While outside counsel spend remained flat nationally, Texas law departments saw a 3 percent decrease in outside spend. Lauren Chung, HBR managing director, said Texas companies are bringing more work in-house.

And total legal spending, both in-house and outside, decreased 11 percent among Texas law departments while remaining flat nationally.

When asked about law department growth, 50 percent of Texas respondents reported a decrease in total staff, while 10 percent reported no change. Nationally only 39 percent reported a decrease while 18 percent said staffing remained unchanged.

So if more work is coming in-house, hiring is down, and outside counsel spend is decreasing, how is all that work getting done in Texas?

Chung said she just conducted a roundtable with Texas participants who confirmed what the figures show. She attributed some of the figures to so many oil companies being included in the mix, during a down economy for the oil industry.

“There's been more of a rigorous effort among Texas companies to be thoughtful in spending,” Chung said. “They are being much stricter in their outside counsel convergence process, and much more aggressive in cost control methods.”

She said Texas law departments are being more strategic about what work their lawyers do, and looking for tools that will allow clients to do more for themselves.

There is also more thinking about how work is being sourced internally, Chung said, prioritizing work so that it is being pushed to the right levels “and creating capacity for senior lawyers to handle the more complex work.”

She sees law departments focusing more on technology and automating. “They are harnessing knowledge in a way that people have ready access to information and can deliver results quicker,” she said.

And they are increasingly using data analytics to help streamline how contracts are handled, to identify improvements in efficiency and to make key decisions.

“There is a lot of investment in these other areas without adding head count or increasing outside counsel spend,” Chung said. She noted that the national survey had indicated an increased use of data analytics as well.

This story has been corrected to fix a quote from Lauren Chung.