The scales of legal spending have tipped toward the in-house team. Corporate legal departments are now “spending more internally than externally.” More than half (54%) of legal spend will be allocated to in-house resources this year.

That’s according to the 2022 Law Department Management Benchmarking Report by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA). The survey polled 427 legal departments across 24 industries and 26 countries. As a percentage, the shift in spending is a modest change from the 2021 edition. That survey found 51% of spend would go to outside counsel and 49% would remain inside. However, as a benchmark, the notion that more than half of legal spending will remain in-house is extraordinary.