It’s not as simple as showing your internal hourly cost is less than outside hourly rates

An anecdote told by Karen Ruzic Klein, vice president of legal, consumer travel at Cendant Corp., illustrates this point. Klein calculated that her inside lawyers cost about $150 an hour to work on a certain type of matter, whereas her outside counsel would charge $200 an hour. The zinger: “it was taking staff nearly four times as long as outside counsel to complete the matter”! (Legal Times, Vol. 15, Sept. 2005 at 50).

Unless you track internal time, you can’t objectively peer beyond the simplistic per-hour gap between inside and outside lawyers. The comparative productivity of outside counsel – based on more experience, skills, or resources – will tell its tale