In-house spend on outside firms rising

By Paula Rohan In-house solicitors are spending an increasing amount of their time outsourcing work to private practice, new research has revealed.

And many of them are spending more than 1 million by doing so.

The Law Society annual omnibus survey of 1,220 solicitors, including 520 who work in-house, showed that 82% of in-house solicitors have outsourced work at some point, with more than 40% of those working in government and 29% in industry saying outsourcing has increased over the past three years.More than 38% of those in government and 26% in business anticipated it rising in the future.

The lions share of the money for outsourcing came from commerce and industry, with 48% of solicitors in the sector saying they spent more than1 million on private legal services in the last year.

Almost 20% estimated thefigure at 10 million or more.

Business and commercial affairs, commercial property and employment law were the main areas outsourced.

Ann Page, vice-chairwoman of the Law Societys Commerce & Industry Group, said: The demand for legal services outstrips our resources.

[Businesses] are reshaping and remoulding at a very fast pace, and there is also a vast increase in regulation, from employment to corporate governance.Much of the work generated needed a team of specialist people and so it was more cost effective to get the work done externally as it arose, Ms Page explained.

Developing an overall picture of the work of private practice solicitors, the omnibus survey found that the highest percentage of fee-earning time was spent on business and commercial work (17%), personal injury work (15%) and residential conveyancing (12%).

The last category was also the type of work most frequently undertaken by solicitors since admission.

More than 80% of solicitors werespecialists defined as spending at least half their time on one type of work.Personal injury specialists on average spent 86% of their time on their own specialty, more than any other specialists.When broken down by gender, men carried out a broader range of work than women.

More than twice as many women as men specialised in family law, a figure reversed for business andcommercial, crime, and commercialproperty work.

The omnibus survey also covered IT and found that solicitors are well ahead on computer skills, with more than 80% having their own PC.

Regarding training, the survey showed that most of those questioned qualified in firms with between five and ten partners.

However, almost half of all ethnic minority solicitors started out in firms with four or fewer partners.

They were less likely to have trained in larger firms than white trainees.Peter Herbert, vice-chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers, said: The situation is abysmal.

Larger firms are generally more lucrative and it is a rough rule of thumb that the further away you go from the money, the more of us you will find.