Survey: Corporate Counsel Costs Up 7 Percent

According to this report in The National Law Journal of a new survey from Altman Weil and LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, corporate law department internal spending climbed by 7 percent while outside spending edged up by 1.4 percent at American companies with more than $5 billion in revenue. The increase translates to costs of $346,497 per lawyer, driven chiefly by an average 19.2 percent bump in lawyer compensation and benefits. Outside expenditures now average $616,519 per lawyer, ranging from above $1 million in the chemical manufacturing industry to $251,405 per lawyer in the insurance industry. The survey data, collected from 144 companies in the spring, reflects fiscal year 2006 spending.