The Market for Data Privacy Legal Services
This report analyzes the demand for expertise and representation in the form of data protection legal counsel.
The demand for privacy and data protection legal counsel has grown along with the complexity of the global regulatory scene. Worldwide, we have seen enterprises increase in-house privacy staff at a rate of as much as 33 percent year over year (see “IAPP-EY Annual Governance Report, 2015”), and increasingly provide privacy training to non-privacy personnel. Nonetheless, companies still need expertise and representation from outside counsel at certain times for certain functions.
When do they engage these outside attorneys, and for what kinds of privacy tasks? How much do they pay for these tasks? Are they satisfied with the results? When might they prefer a consultant instead?
To explore these questions and more, in January 2016 the IAPP and Bloomberg Law conducted a survey of 353 privacy professionals and identified 181 in-house privacy professionals who self-identified as currently employing outside counsel, shopping for external counsel, or having employed outside counsel in the last year. This revealed a number of interesting findings.