For in-house counsel, “control” means getting more value from legal spend in 2023

Controlling legal spend doesn’t necessarily mean cutting costs, which may increase risk to intolerable levels; it means getting more value for the money invested in legal services.

As global economic dynamics have shifted, so too have equity narratives, especially for private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investors.  As our CEO Nicholas d'Adhemar wrote recently for Alpha Week, equity stories have shifted from ‘growth at any cost’ to ‘profitable growth.’

Investors aiming for growth know they can’t cut costs and still expect to grow. However, they can make adjustments to drive more value out of the money they’ve already committed.

This is instructive for in-house lawyers working for private investment firms because the complexity facing equity investing grows every day. For example, there are more challenges associated with compliance and regulations at every level. These developments invariably drive more demand for legal services, not less.

Simply cutting what an investment firm spends on legal would expose it to a risk level that far outweighs any savings. So, the operative word, for in-house legal teams, is control. Control means getting more value for the money spent on legal.

As the ever-brilliant D. Casey Flaherty put it in this Legally Vocal podcast discussion with Nicholas, legal needs “a higher yield from every dollar we spend.”

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We recently surveyed 300 in-house lawyers working for venture capital and private equity firms in the US and UK to find out how they are planning to control legal costs. Download a copy of the report to discover how investment firms like yours are taking to control legal spend in 2023: The pursuit of control in legal spending.