The past 12 months have seen an unprecedented number of panel reviews as in-house counsel have come under increasing pressure to justify their budgets.

In Legal Director’s Benchmarker survey on fees (March 2003), an overwhelming majority (72%) of the general counsel questioned said that their chief financial officer or CEO was “concerned” about the level of legal fees being spent by the company, a figure rising to 100% among companies with an annual legal spend of more than £5m.