Lawsuits by the hundred keep US lawyers busy

NEW YORK - In-house lawyers at US companies have plenty of work, with the average large corporation facing more than 100 lawsuits at any one time, a study has found.

Companies with at least US$1 billion ($1.4 billion) in annual revenue are engaged in 147 lawsuits simultaneously, down from 159 lawsuits a year ago, according to the survey commissioned by law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.

Including smaller companies, the average corporation balances a docket of 37 lawsuits, down from 47 last year.

Despite the small decline, companies still were facing "a big number" of lawsuits, said Stephen Dillard, head of Fulbright & Jaworski's litigation practice.

"If you look at the resources that are being devoted to beef up in-house legal staffs, they are increasing the number of attorneys" handling legal matters.

This was only the second year of the survey, so it was unclear if the decline in lawsuits was a trend, Dillard said.

But he said that after a large jump in litigation in the 1990s, recent tort reforms might be discouraging plaintiffs from bringing suits that were unlikely to succeed.

The survey, done in June and July, questioned 354 general counsel and chief legal officers, including 50 in Britain. The median company in the survey had annual revenue of US$484 million.

About half of the respondents said their companies tracked legal spending. The average legal budget was US$20.1 million annually. Ten per cent said legal spending accounted for 5 per cent or more of total annual revenue, which translates into about US$50 million for a company with US$1 billion in annual sales.

The biggest new legal worry involves electronic data discovery, such as the duty to preserve emails and other potential electronic evidence, the survey found.

Eighty-one per cent of US companies now have written policies on records retention and about 75 per cent have so-called litigation hold policies, which require the retention of documents once a lawsuit is under way.

- REUTERS