In-House Counsel

Connoisseur of benchmarks that I am, I?m drawn to what we don?t know (See my post of Dec. 7, 2008: four missing metrics and my article; and May 20, 2009: time spent by in-house lawyers that is non chargeable is an unknown metric.). In the category of data missing about external spend, here are 10 figures on my benchmark-bucket wish list. If you know some of these, I would appreciate hearing from you.

1. Blended rates by size of law firm (See my post of Dec. 5, 2005: blended billing rates with 7 references, fixed fees.).

2. Effective hourly rates of law firms that account for 75 percent or more of fees paid (See my post of March 9, 2009: effective billing rates with 9 references.).

3. Law firms paid more than $5,000 a year per billion dollars of revenue.

4. Total legal spend as a proportion of market capitalization (See my post of Sept. 7, 2008: total legal spending per share; and June 4, 2007: Rio Tinto and market cap.).

5. Volatility of legal spend , which includes baseline legal spend and how much it explains of total external legal spend (See my post of Oct. 2, 2006: base spend.).

6. Percentages of external fees charged back to clients (See my post of April 15, 2009: charging fees of counsel back to internal clients with 8 references.).

7. Non-law firm spend as percentage of external spend (See my post of May 30, 2006: the legal ecosystem and an estimate of 10% paid to other vendors.).

8. Total costs of resolution per type of case (See my post of Jan. 20, 2009: figures on total resolution costs.).

9. Amounts written off bills (See my post of March 8, 2009: write offs and bill reductions with 8 references and one metapost.).

10. Concentration of billing by core staff (See my post of Aug. 8, 2006: core staff with 6 references; and July 17, 2008: core team II with 11 references and citations to 7 earlier.).