Companies Spending More on Regulatory Enforcement Legal Work

Businesses in Texas and across the country are spending more money on legal fees to fight high stakes litigation and deal with a growing number of local and federal agency enforcement actions. 

Norton Rose Fulbright's recently released 10th annual Litigation Trends survey indicates 71% of corporations spent $1 million or more on litigation costs in 2013, up from 53% the two previous years.

More than 26% of companies saw their litigation legal costs exceed $10 million last year.  Median costs for Texas businesses in 2013 exceeded $2 million and 20% of energy company GCs polled said they spent $10 million or more on legal costs.

It is reported an increasing amount of discovery in business-to-business litigation focuses on communications made from mobile devices and social media.

General counsel at health care and energy companies reported the highest litigation costs.  More than 1/3 of the companies surveyed said they now employ five full time lawyers in-house to work exclusively on litigation matters.  Sixteen percent of Texas corporations reported they will add litigators to their legal department staffs in 2014, while less than 1% said they plan to decrease the number of lawyers they have working on litigation matters.

Click here to download the full report.