In-House Corporate Counsel Barometer

Summary Of Study

The In-House Corporate Counsel Barometer for 2006 offers a consistent perspective from 2005 when it comes to some of the principal job-environment tracking measures:

• Job satisfaction measures remain high, though have dipped very slightly from 2005
• Seven in ten respondents (71%, vs. 75% in 2005) would recommend becoming corporate counsel to friends or colleagues
• Nine in ten (87%) feel "candidly assessing risks" is their most valuable role - opinions essentially unchanged from last year
• Regulatory compliance remains the area of law that is most challenging for corporate counsel
• Over the next five years corporate counsel feel they must focus on leadership and business sector knowledge skills in order to remain effective in their jobs
• Thinking about the next two years, over one-third of corporate counsel (36%, essentially unchanged from 34% last year) think their legal department will increase the number of lawyers
• Seven in ten corporate counsel (68%) point to the "ability to see the big picture" as one of the top three personality attributes they believe are most important in successfully carrying out their responsibilities

New topics and questions were introduced in 2006. Specifically, the study focused on:

1) Relationship with outside counsel:

• Two-thirds of respondents feel their organization's use of outside counsel is "just right" - but some (17%) feel it's too heavy, while 10% feel it's not enough
• Sixty-five percent say they are more likely to seek the services of outside counsel for "large complex matters or issues" than for routine matters
• By far the largest proportion of respondents (48%) rank litigation as the number one practice area for which they are most likely to seek the services of outside counsel - more than five times the proportion for any other practice area
• Seven in ten (69%) agree with the statement "the services supplied by outside counsel over the last year have demonstrated value for money to you and your organization"

2) Experiences with alternative billing structures:

• In their dealings with outside counsel, 38% of corporate counsel say that they or their organization has had experience in the past with billing structures other than hourly rates
• Of those who have had experience with alternative billing structures, 68% have worked with a "fixed fees" billing structure, 53% "capped fees", 48% "percent discounts", 22% "blended rates" and 19% "bonus structure based on results"

3) Corporate counsel's role:

• There are some differences among corporate counsel when asked which role they feel is the most important one filled by the corporate counsel in their organisation. Half (47%) feel "an advisory role" is the most important, one-third (33%) feel it is a "management role" and 21% feel it is a "legal role".
• Seven in ten (71%) corporate counsel report to their organization's President and/or CEO, 13% report to the Vice President of a business unit, and 7% report to the Chief Financial Officer. One-quarter of corporate counsel (23%) sit on the Board of Directors of their organizations.
• When asked what strategic issues their organization's corporate counsel is directly involved in, strong majorities point to "regulatory compliance" (69%), "crisis management" (61%), and "strategic development" (60%).

METHODOLOGY

For this survey, 780 corporate counsel completed an on-line questionnaire. Given the finite population of the corporate counsel community in Canada, the total sample can be considered accurate to within 177 3.5 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.

For more information on this press release, please contact:
John Wright
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Reid
Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900
[email protected]

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