The novel coronavirus is altering the world, but a new study suggests that the pandemic hasn't spurred corporate legal department leaders to rearrange their strategic priorities for the coming year. 

"Certainly things are getting delayed a bit. Projects are being put on hold. But we didn't see a major change in overall priorities because of it," Chris Maguire, general manager of corporate legal software and compliance at Thomson Reuters, said Friday. 

The company's latest annual State of Corporate Law Departments study shows that in-house leaders are still devoting much of their strategic focus to "improving functional effectiveness," followed by "increasing efficiency" and "safeguarding the company." 

The study is based on data and research from Thomson Reuters' e-billing arm Legal Tracker and subsidiary Acritas, a law firm consultancy that interviewed 600 U.S.-based senior in-house legal counsel. 

After the initial round of interviews in late 2019, Thomson Reuters' research teams spoke again with several general counsel respondents to check whether their earlier priorities had "gone completely out the window" amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The researchers found that the opposite was true.

"But for many departments, the core strategic priorities remain as they described them, and in fact, may even be more important at the current time," the report states. "The current crisis only underscores the previous environment in which in-house legal teams face pressure on a multitude of fronts."

According to the study, 50% of in-house leaders were focused on effectiveness, 44% on efficiency and 26% on safeguarding the company. But only 5% said they we're concerned about investing in their legal teams. 

"It's interesting that it's down there so low," said Carly Toward, proposition lead for law departments at Thomson Reuters. "When you think about effectiveness, you have to look at the talent behind your team. It's an area that we're flagging for people to pay attention to." 

Functional effectiveness means different things to different in-house leaders. But for many, part of being effective means taking a broader view of the legal department's role, one that goes beyond strictly legal issues. 

But that can be difficult, as one unnamed respondent noted: "I don't think in terms of strategic priorities—it's enough to handle the work that flies at me every day!"

When it comes to efficiency, 90% of respondents said controlling outside counsel costs was a high priority, while 41% were focused on handling more work in-house. Looking ahead, 64% reported that they wanted to increase the amount of in-house work, though 63% said they weren't planning to hire more in-house lawyers—a problematic imbalance that could stretch legal departments too thin. 

Turning to law department budgets, 12% more participants planned to increase legal spending than those who planned to decrease spending during the next year. But a closer look at the numbers shows that legal department budgets at the largest companies are likely to remain flat, while the smaller firms aim to build out their legal departments. 

According to the survey, the average corporate law department spends 61% of its budget on outside counsel and 39% on in-house counsel. Only 6% of outside spending goes to alternative legal service providers. 

"We see the very large legal departments turning to service providers," Toward said. "But when you get into the midsize and smaller firms, they're not thinking ALSP first, though it is growing and we can expect that to continue to grow." 

On average, 5% of in-house spending goes toward technology, according to the survey.

"This is one that has changed and continues to grow, but it is still quite low," Toward said. "Legal departments generally don't get a lot of budget for technology."