Minnesota Lawyer Blog

My sources at Special Counsel, formerly The Esquire Group have been telling me for months that attorneys are flocking to in-house jobs. Turns out, they're on to something.

According to the recently released 2008 Chief Legal Officer survey from Altman Weil, 49 percent of respondents plan to hire more lawyers in the next year. This is up from 40 percent in 2007.

Another 26 percent plan to decrease their use of outside counsel, which is a notable jump from the 16 percent in last year's survey.

The full report, which surveyed 126 chief legal officers between May and June, is available here.

Many in-house types have been worried about the cost of compliance since Sarbanes-Oxley, and recent data on accounting salaries show that there may be cause for continuing concern.

According to the 2008 Salary Guide from Robert Half, public accountants are expected to see a bump in pay anywhere from 5.5 percent to 7.7 percent — several percentage points higher than the projected salary hikes for corporate accountants.

Will this translate into higher bills for those internal control reports? Here’s the numbers:

PUBLIC ACCOUNTING
Audit, tax and management services

Large firms
Senior manager/director: +7.4%
Manager: +7%
Senior: +6.1%
1 to 3 years: +5.7%
Up to 1 year: +5.5%

Midsize firms
Senior manager/director: +7.7%
Manager: +7%
Senior: +6.2%
1 to 3 years: +6.4%
Up to 1 year: +6.3%

Small firms
Senior manager/director: +7%
Manager: +7.6%
Senior: +6%
1 to 3 years: +7.7%
Up to 1 year: +6.4%