Benchmark metrics help a general counsel know how well his or her law department is managed compared with other law departments. “Is my spending in line?” “Do I have a typical number of paralegals?”. These measures can help an in-house lawyer respond confidently when the chief executive officer asks: “Have you sufficiently narrowed down the number of law firms you use?”
General counsel use benchmark data to argue for more hires or bigger budgets, defend the resources they have and to look for clues to improve their department’s operations. Amid the profusion of benchmarks foisted on general counsel, three are pre-eminent.
