In recent years, corporate legal departments have taken on additional job responsibilities as legal becomes increasingly integrated into the business at large. But according to one recent survey, not all other business units see legal as a helpful partner—and they may be bypassing legal entirely if they see attorneys as too inflexible and unhelpful to greater business goals.

Today, Onit and research firm Provoke Insights released the first part of its Enterprise Legal Reputation Report, which surveyed 4,000 business professionals in the U.S., UK, France and Germany about their perceptions of their companies' legal departments. The survey found that about half of those professionals viewed legal as a trusted advisor in helping protect the business, including 55% of those polled in the U.S.

However, not all viewed their interactions with legal as positive. For instance, while 62% of finance and HR professionals said their interactions with legal were largely positive, just 43% of sales professionals and less than 40% of marketing, IT and procurement professionals said the same.