Field note
In-house teams and the shape of panel load
A legal department's 'matters' often include panel instructions, not only files opened on a private-practice screen. The pictures have to admit that.
An in-house legal department does not always look like a private-practice matter list. Panel instructions, volume-arrangement files, and internal advice that never received a matter number still consume people.
When we picture that load, we ask the general counsel which of those objects count as a 'matter' for the conversation they want to have. Mixing panel invoices with internal files on one axis without a split produces a confident chart that nobody trusts.
Resource utilisation inside a company legal team also includes the hours that finance will never see as a recovered rate. Those hours are still hours. The pack should show them as such, not apologise for them.
External firms on a panel can be shown as a load picture: instructions out, instructions stuck, and the in-house lawyer attached as the client contact. We do not assess the quality of the panel firms. That is a different instruction.
The first conversation is often in Grays or at the company's own offices, not on a shared screen full of widgets. Paper still helps. People annotate margins. That is a legitimate way to agree what the next export must include.