GCs' Growing Roles Could Mean More Legal Department, Outside Counsel Hires
The Association of Corporate Counsel's 2021 Chief Legal Officers Survey found that legal departments may be looking to bulk up their ranks. But that doesn't necessarily mean that departments will find themselves spending any less on outside legal work.
January 27, 2021 at 03:57 PM
4 minute read
General counsel and in-house legal teams may need to brace themselves for a busy year ahead. On Tuesday, the Association of Corporate Counsel released it's Chief Legal Officers Survey and the results point to corporate legal departments looking for reinforcements as they take on growing challenges around such areas as privacy and compliance.
The survey fielded responses from 947 participants working across 44 countries in 21 different industries. No matter where each respondent was based, it's likely that they had to contend with the business impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in some shape or form. But for many, that doesn't appear to be hindering plans for legal department growth.
According to the ACC report, 32% of all surveyed legal departments plan to hire more in-house lawyers in 2021. Furthermore, 49% of the respondents who said they planned to send more work to outside counsel indicated that they also still plan to hire more lawyers in-house as well. Meanwhile, only about 5% of respondents who expect to add lawyers in 2021 plan to decrease the amount of work they send to law firms, as opposed to about 13% who said the same in 2020.
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