In the past couple of weeks I had three posts which discussed the recently released “2006 Chief Legal Officer Survey” by the Association of Corporate Counsel. One of the highlights of that survey was that 25% of the CLOs reported that they “plan to increase the use of (outside) law firms in 2007.”
Also released last month was a survey of corporate counsel (from Fortune 1000 and other large companies) by The BTI Consulting Group. The survey reports on the projected growth in outside law firm spending for 2007 in 16 practice areas and 18 industries. Click here for a copy of the executive summary.
Both surveys are consistent in reporting that transactional and corporate related work is on the increase, as was reported in my last post on the CLO survey. The good news out of the BTI survey is that it identifies the projected growth in other areas. Here is the list of 16 practices with the percentage of anticipated growth for each:
- Class Actions – 19.2%
- Regulatory – 18.1%
- Bet-the-Company – 16.7%
- IP Litigation – 12.5%
- Securities – 11.8%
- M&A – 11.2%
- Litigation – 10.1%
- Employment – 9.5%
- Intellectual Property – 7.9%
- Investigations – 6.3%
- Corporate – 6.0%
- Restructuring – 5.4%
- Bankruptcy – 4.8%
- Tax – 4.1%
- Environmental – 2.7%
- Real Estate – 2.2%
This information should help focus your firm’s legal marketing efforts over the next several months.