The average legal spend for FTSE 100 companies nosedived from £18.7 million in 2010 to £12.6m in 2012, according to the ninth annual client satisfaction report from Legal Week Intelligence.
Across a wider search of businesses, legal costs fell by nearly 50 per cent, from £6.2m to 3.2m, in that period.

Getting satisfaction

The report assessed views from more than 1,650 general counsel and decision makers from 1,204 companies – including nearly 90 per cent of the FTSE 100.
However, the fall in legal costs has been met with a rise in client satisfaction, with an average of 7.2 out of 10 this year compared to 6.5 in 2010.
Ian Leedham, senior counsel at energy company National Grid, told Legal Week: ‘Our day-to-day budget has remained frozen for a number of years, so in real terms it has gone down, which I suspect is true for many, but the lack of project, M&A and funding becoming difficult to obtain, means the more deal-specific legal spend will have dropped off, which probably accounts for the drop.’

No bottomless pit

On the improvement in satisfaction results, BT chief counsel Liz Walker commented: ‘It's probably because law firms and general counsel are working closer together; there's more of an understanding of our needs and that there isn't a bottomless pit when it comes to fees. They're not doing it by osmosis.’