Benchmark Report: How COVID-19 Is Impacting In-House Legal Teams

COVID-19 has undeniably disrupted business as usual — forcing millions into a remote work culture, shutting down the booming travel and entertainment industries, and displacing hundreds of thousands of freelancers and full-time employees whose companies were impacted by the rapid economic downturn.

As businesses across the globe adapt to these volatile economic circumstances, their legal teams are playing a key role in assessing business obligations and risks. Many questions have arisen: What now? How do we ensure business continuity? What stays the same? If we have to make changes, where should we invest our resources and focus?

For answers, Ironclad partnered with TechGC to get a pulse on how legal teams have been impacted.

Here are the topline results of our joint survey:

• Legal teams won’t see a significant reduction in headcount. Despite COVID-19, nearly 66% anticipate keeping the same headcount. This may be a positive indicator that in-house legal teams are as busy as ever shoring up business obligations and providing guidance. About 17% of respondents predicted a headcount reduction and 10% plan to add headcount.

• Work from home is the new norm. Prior to COVID-19, more than half of TechGC companies had a flexible WFH policy, enabling employees to work remotely as needed. Now, that number has jumped to nearly 70%. Some organizations, e.g., Twitter, are going 100% remote indefinitely.
• Legal spend largely remains the same. Despite the economic impact of the pandemic, a large majority of companies (72.80%) anticipate spending the same or more for outside counsel and legal technology, for example, contract management and CLE subscriptions.

• Contract management is the most popular legaltech category by a wide margin. Ninety percent of respondents have or are considering contract management technology. Forms and legal research and board management trail behind.