In the market for legal services, some opinions simply matter more than others. Arguably, the opinions that matter the most are those of in-house counsel. The premise of our third annual outside counsel rankings is simple and direct. We asked approximately 1,000 in-house counsel two simple questions: 1) “Which law firms does your company engage for legal services?” and 2) “Please indicate the highest level legal work for which your company will engage the particular firm(s).” The “levels” of work were defined along a four-point scale:
1. Cost-efficient, bulk tasks
2. Routine matters
3. High-value, complex matters
4. “Bet-the-company” matters
Earlier this year, those in-house lawyers — from nearly 500 companies and over 40 cities — shared with us their evaluations of their companies’ outside law firms. Check out the results here.
(Please note that our survey was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and thus will not reflect the associated inevitable changes in perception and circumstances within the legal services market.)