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Solving General Counsel Challenges
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As workloads grow at a rapid rate and risk management increases in complexity, businesses are asking more from their legal departments. Today’s in-house counsel must be effective generalists for a wide variety of legal topics that arise in day-to-day corporate practice, all falling under the leadership of the general counsel (GC). However, as corporate legal departments trend toward insourcing more work and headcount remains relatively flat, CEOs are looking to GCs to transform their department into strategic business partners and valued members of the leadership team.
Gone are the days when in-house counsel are seen simply as legal risk managers and providers of legal services. Today, GCs are expected to provide fast, accurate, and on-point guidance to C-suite executives and the board of directors, and work with stakeholders across the business as an ally in advancing the business and enhancing the reputation of the organization. See how Bloomberg Law can help.
Solving general counsel challenges
As a GC, you must wear many hats, from a legal advisor to a business strategist to a risk management expert — not to mention managing your department and outside counsel relationships. With so many responsibilities covering a vast range of expertise, the role of GC has expanded, and so has their workload. This is especially true as they become more ingrained with their business and look to shift more work internally to reduce spend on outside counsel. As workloads increase, GCs are left with little time to act as strategic business partners and a valued member of the leadership team.
Challenge: Staying up-to-date on legal and industry trends
To stay out of the crosshairs of state and federal regulators, a GC needs complete visibility on the latest regulations and mandates. 66% of CLOs anticipate that industry regulations will cause the biggest legal challenges this year, according to a recent Associate of Corporate Counsel survey. Not only do you need to keep a pulse on both direct competitors and the industry, but you also need to track legislative progress so that you can stay ahead of relevant developments that could have significant impacts on your business.
Although the information is often out there, finding it can be a tedious, time-consuming process without a centralized, reliable solution. GCs need a single source to stay on top of the latest industry trends and quickly find the information they need to deliver guidance with confidence.
Challenge: Managing a never-ending, ever-changing workload
As businesses seek to insource more work and optimize their use of outside counsel, in-house workloads are rapidly increasing in volume and complexity. Today’s GCs must have the flexibility to work in diverse areas of law, from employment litigation and corporate governance to privacy and data security and intellectual property. According to a 2021 EY study, GCs expect work volumes to rise by 25% over the next three years, yet headcounts are only expected to grow by 3% in that same period. To keep pace with this influx of legal work, GCs need a tool that enables them to tackle a wide array of legal and business challenges, regardless of their experience or expertise.
Solution: Unmetered access to comprehensive coverage on one platform
Bloomberg Law is an all-inclusive platform with everything corporate legal departments need to tackle more work in less time. Receive unmetered access to our significant depth of knowledge and resources; that way, you can get the answers you need across a variety of topics and 15 different practice areas. Bloomberg Law enables you to advise quickly and confidently, with 93% of customers reporting that it helps them advise business stakeholders and handle a broad range of matters.
No matter what your day-to-day brings, Bloomberg Law has got you covered with everything you need. That’s why 94% of GC customers agree that Bloomberg Law has all the legal research tools, resources, and content their legal departments need on one integrated platform. With Bloomberg Law, your department can search all our content for as long and as often as they need without incurring additional charges. No paywalls or out-of-plan charges. Our comprehensive platform and predictable pricing are why 88% of customers have been able to decrease their annual outside counsel spend by an average of 8%, and many report savings of up to 25%.
Challenge: Constant pressure to deliver more with less
In addition to advising on legal and compliance issues, the C-suite is now relying more and more on GCs for strategic guidance on how they can navigate the complexities of the law to capture and realize business opportunities, and to grow and expand the business in existing and new markets. This means GCs are investing more time in getting to know and understand key stakeholders across core business functions – from finance and sales to operations and IT. This also means GCs must have a deep understanding of the company’s customers, products, and services. While this role expansion is essential to the modern GC’s success, these new demands add to the existing burdens of managing the rising workloads of their departments and reducing reliance on outside counsel.
To play a more strategic role in their organization and bring more work in house, GCs need a single solution designed to help their departments increase productivity and unlock capacity to focus on high-value and more strategic work, respond faster to business stakeholders, and deliver strategic guidance to their organization. Bloomberg Law can help you increase productivity and maximize efficiency so your department can deliver more value to your organization. 77% of Bloomberg Law customers say that using the platform frees up time for their department to focus on high-value work.
Solution: Practical Guidance and practitioner tools
Bloomberg Law helps you reduce your reliance on outside counsel, empowering you to make confident decisions, provide reliable advice, and act rapidly without compromising accuracy. Step-by-step Practical Guidance provides you and your department with task-based, how-to coverage, including an extensive collection of:
- Overviews
- Checklists
- Sample forms
- Agreements
- Clauses
- Timelines
- Drafting and negotiating guides
- And so much more.
With Bloomberg Law’s time-saving tools like Chart Builders, Trackers, Fast Answers, and In-Focus resources, you can increase your department’s productivity and efficiency, saving time to focus on business-critical issues.
Accomplish more in house with Bloomberg Law
Bloomberg Law can assist GCs in every aspect of your day-to-day legal practice. Whether you’re trying to stay up to date on the latest legislative developments or reduce your reliance on outside counsel while maximizing the productivity of your department, Bloomberg Law has everything you need to deliver on your company’s goals. Schedule a demo.
Customers are talking about Bloomberg Law
Bloomberg Law increases our internal intelligence and knowledge, making in-house experts across a broad array of legal areas. It’s allowed to us to handle more matters in-house, saving us up to 20% on annual outside counsel spend.
Bloomberg Law allows us to do much of the work in-house. It gives our department the confidence that we have the correct information. It provides quick answers that save us from having to call outside counsel. As a result, we were able to decrease our annual outside counsel spend by more than 15%.
By redirecting research and workflows to in-house counsel we are able to circumvent outside counsel costs for the same work. And making it automated reduced our own in-house time spent researching. As a result, Bloomberg Law has helped us decrease our annual spend on outside counsel by nearly 20%.