Law Department Management Blog
The most recent ALM Intelligence metrics survey asked about 26 practice areas, including “Other.” They allowed me to examine data provided by about 70 US legal departments. Of them, eight practice areas accounted for two-thirds of all the lawyer positions. Litigation and Commercial each accounted for around 15%, while Intellectual Property and Regulatory were next most common (7%). International as well as Labor/employment both had around 6%. Securities, Healthcare, and Insurance, at 4% each brought the total of the most common practice areas up to two-thirds of all the lawyers.
From a different perspective, with the exception of Insurance, which was influenced by the participation of a large insurance company, the other seven specialties of law are generic, in that any company might have lawyers who practice in those areas. To learn more about the Law Department Metrics Benchmark Survey of ALM Legal Intelligence, click here for ALM’s website.