More work. Lower pay. Less help.

That's what in-house lawyers have been dealing with as struggling companies scrutinize all departments, including legal, to figure out where to tighten the belt financially.

Connecticut agencies that recruit legal talent for companies have seen it, and so have observers who survey legal departments of the country's largest businesses.

Hildebrandt International released a study earlier this month which revealed that salaries for in-house lawyers started to flatten out in 2008 compared to previous years. And fewer companies increased the number of in-house lawyers while focusing on bringing more work inside to reduce outside counsel costs.

It's possible that the situation for in-house lawyers may be even less rosy because Hildebrandt's survey is based on what happened last year.

"A couple of companies have said their legal team is really stretched right now," said Anne Jennings, managing director of Kelly Law Registry in Hartford.

"Unfortunately, I'm seeing the same thing" indicated by the survey, said Elaine Kaiser, managing director of Kaiser Whitney Staffing in New Haven, a recruiting company that works with the legal profession.

Kaiser said she has seen downsizing in corporate legal departments as well as pay cuts this year. And when there are in-house jobs available, "we see people accepting positions that are lower than what they're used to in salary and in title."

Hildebrandt's survey represented 22 percent of the Fortune 500 list. It found that cash bonuses for all in-house lawyers are on the decline, which led average total cash compensation to grow only slightly overall. There was a 5 percent drop in growth compared to 2007, as average compensation, which includes base salary and bonus, stood at $229,000 last year.

Average base salaries also grew at a slower rate in 2008 than they did in 2007.

In terms of staffing, 30 percent of companies increased its in-house lawyer ranks, which means that 70 percent of legal departments stayed the same or shrunk. That marked the second straight year of declines in hiring.

"Now more than ever, cost control is a strong management imperative for law departments," Lauren Chang, the survey's editor, said in a prepared statement. "The 2009 survey previews changes in the way law departments operate, especially with regard to reducing and managing inside and outside costs."

Most of the attorneys who land in-house positions through Kaiser already have in-house experience. She said it's more difficult for other lawyers to go in-house unless they have a highly specialized skill set that caters to a particular company's business. Kaiser said she's telling lawyers looking for in-house positions to zero in on experience and knowledge that separates them from the crowd. Companies "continue to be highly selective about who they're hiring," Kaiser noted.

NOT WORTH IT

But there's a flip side to it, too.

With companies providing lower pay and more work, there's only so much a current or prospective employee is willing to endure for a job.

"I can say that a majority of people looking to change jobs are doing so because they're overwhelmed" by the workload at their current job, Kaiser said. "Replacement [of open positions] is not occurring, and if it is occurring, it's taking a long time."

Kaiser has been helping one in-house attorney land a job. The woman quit her previous post when her company put off filling a position in the legal department and instead used a string of temporary workers while the work piled up on the woman's desk. "I hear that a lot," Kaiser noted.

And Kaiser has worked with lawyers who have turned down jobs because the salary offer was too low. Those people are either staying in their current in-house position or they're remaining unemployed and waiting out the economy, Kaiser noted.

Companies that don't commit some kind of resources to their employees risk significant personnel shake-ups when the job market improves, Kaiser added.

"I think come January we'll start to see a turn-around," Kaiser said. "So many companies have been running bare-bones so long that they're going to be scratching their heads and asking what happened" when their employees start to leave.

Jennings, of the Kelly Law Registry, said some of the companies she's been in contact with are aware that managing through a bad economy is not as simple as just low-balling employees. "I had a conversation with a company official recently who wanted to set the in-house salary at a fair level because they know how hard [the lawyers] are working," Jennings said. "He was very mindful of setting that salary correctly."

Other companies have begun recognizing the need to bring in additional help. Recently, one company contacted Jennings about bringing in a lawyer as a temporary worker with plans to make the lawyer a permanent hire.

The company official told Jennings that the legal department needed help immediately, and the official didn't want to wait the eight weeks it would take human resources to go through the hiring process.

Some companies "are recognizing that they don't want to burn out their best people," Jennings said. "In the past month, I've noticed companies are hiring temps to relieve some of the pressure of the workload. For the second and third quarters, everyone was tightening their belts and not complaining, but for some of those people who are overworked in the legal market, they're getting a little relief."

In terms of lawyers looking for in-house positions, Jennings said they're not eager to take a job just for the sake of having a job if the work situation, including pay, isn't right.

"I don't feel like candidates are budging," Jennings said. "There's pressure [to take a job in this economy], but only so much. People need to be paid a fair wage."