How Shifting Legal Work In-house Drives Cost Savings: A Quantitative Analysis

For years, the legal industry has broadly accepted that bringing legal work in-house can save money and provide greater control for corporate legal departments. While this belief holds true, our analysis, based on financial and operational data from the ACC 2025 Law Department Management Benchmarking Survey, reveals a more nuanced picture.

We identify precisely where and how insourcing translates into quantifiable financial advantages, equipping legal leaders with the empirical insights needed to optimize their operational models, allocate resources effectively, and demonstrate tangible value to their organizations.

Takeaways

• Data is Key. The prevailing wisdom about insourcing driving cost savings is often based on assumption. Our report provides rigorous, quantitative analysis to back up the real financial benefits.
• Not All Insourcing is Equal. A broad-stroke approach to insourcing does not necessarily lead to savings. Our research shows no simple correlation between overall insourcing rates and total legal spend.
• Targeted Insourcing Drives Major Savings. Significant cost reductions are achieved by strategically insourcing specific, high-value legal work areas.
• Outside Counsel Spend is the Primary Lever. The substantial cost savings from targeted insourcing come primarily from a dramatic reduction in outside counsel expenditures. While internal operational costs may see a marginal increase, these are overwhelmingly offset.
• Empirical Evidence for Strategic Decisions. This report gives legal leaders the data-backed ammunition to identify precisely which legal work categories offer the greatest financial returns when brought in-house, justify internal growth and resource allocation to the C-suite, and optimize legal spend portfolios by building efficient hybrid models.