Outside counsel spend is one of the biggest line items in a legal budget, often close to half of total costs. Few decisions attract more attention from finance than who sits on the panel. Yet a 2025 survey found that nearly 60%* of in-house teams still don’t have formal billing guidelines. And even where guidelines exist, 87%* of teams admit they are rarely enforced. The result? More than half* of legal leaders believe they are overbilled, while most spend only a few hours a month reviewing invoices.