In-House Corporate Counsel Barometer

Nearly all in-house counsel (91%) are satisfied with their job overall (47% very satisfied) and a strong majority (82%) feel satisfied with their work-life balance (42% very satisfied). Most in-house counsel are satisfied with their benefits and bonus structure (67%) and their current base salary excluding benefits and bonuses (61%).

In fact, job satisfaction among in-house counsel is on the rise: seven in ten (72%) agree that, compared to a year ago, they are more satisfied with their job today.

These high levels of job satisfaction are likely driven by the strong beliefs among in-house counsel that their company values the work they do (89%), that in-house counsel have a better quality of life than those who practise at a law firm (81%), and that in-house practice is as challenging as law firm practice (91%).

In-house counsel also point to a number of advantages of working as in-house counsel over working in a law firm, including: being an active part of business decisions (63%), applying legal training to a business environment (56%), working for one client (51%), and the variety of work (50%).

Probably because of their high levels of job satisfaction, three in four in-house counsel (75%) are likely to recommend in-house counsel practice to their friends or colleagues who are currently in private practice. But while in-house counsel are happy with their jobs, they do identify serious challenges to carrying out their responsibilities and point to a number of work issues that are of great concern to them. Primary among these is the challenge of staying on top of the volume of work (60%) and concern about keeping on top of developments in the law (57%).

In order to deal with these challenges and remain effective in their job, in-house counsel will need to learn a range of management and administrative skills in the next five years. Twenty six percent of in-house counsel feel they will personally have to learn business sector knowledge skills in order to remain effective in their job, 18% say they need accounting or financial skills and 11% say technology skills.

When it comes to dealing with developments in the law, a majority of in-house counsel (56%) rank regulatory compliance as an area of law that will be most challenging for themselves or their law department over the next one to two years, while 44% rank governance and 39% rank litigation as paramount.

Management and administrative issues may become more of an issue for in-house counsel in the coming one to two years, as one-third of in-house counsel (34%) think their legal department will increase the number of lawyers in their department over this timeframe - compared with 5% who expect the number to decrease (representing a NET score of +29 points).

Many in-house counsel, though, are not planning on tackling all of these upcoming challenges without some outside help: four in ten (43%) expect the amount of money their company spends on outside counsel will increase, compared with 16% who expect this amount to decrease - this despite the fact that half (49%) say they are under pressure to reduce both inside and outside legal costs in their organization.

When it comes to how they will select which outside counsel to contract, a majority of in-house counsel (62%) say that whether or not a firm knows its business is one of their most important selection criteria.

Thinking generally about the services supplied by outside legal counsel to their organization over the last year, 26% of in-house counsel say that they have improved, while 10% say that they have grown worse.

Looking ahead, many in-house counsel foresee a changing relationship with outside counsel for their department in the next two years, such as better control of costs (63%), less reliance on routine matters (44%), more partnering or interaction (40%), non-standard billing (39%), and increased use of outside counsel (21%).

Methodology

For this survey, 1,187 in-house corporate counsel completed an on-line questionnaire. Given the finite population of the in-house corporate counsel community in Canada, the total sample can be considered accurate to within 1772.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what it would have been had the entire population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population.
Please open the attached PDF to view the complete factum, graphical displays and detailed tables.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900