46 legal department metrics every data-driven general counsel should track

You already know legal metrics are important. They help you benchmark performance, justify budgets, identify inefficiencies, and improve alignment with the business.

But knowing which metrics to track? That’s the hard part.

Today’s general counsel (GC) are more than legal advisors—they’re operational leaders. Whether you’re running point on risk management, budgeting, or scaling your legal team, the right data helps you make better decisions. 

Here are 46 key legal metrics modern GCs are tracking and how they support the legal team.

Overall legal department metrics

The legal department serves as a central hub for the business, fielding requests from across the company and managing a wide range of legal work. Tracking top-line metrics about how much work is coming in, how efficiently it's handled, and how satisfied internal clients are with legal support helps general counsel understand how the team is performing operationally. These insights are critical for identifying bottlenecks, prioritizing resources, justifying headcount, and demonstrating the team's impact across the organization.

1. Legal request volume (overall, by business team, by request type, by team member): Tracks how much work is coming in and who it's coming from, helping with resource planning and team allocation.
2. Average time spent per legal request stage: Identifies where bottlenecks occur so you can optimize workflows.
3. First response times to different types of legal requests: A fast initial response builds trust and helps internal clients move faster.
4. Legal processing time: Measures how long it takes to handle requests end-to-end—key for evaluating efficiency.
5. Internal client satisfaction score: Gauges how business partners feel about the support they’re getting from legal.
6. Rate of legal request close (time to close): Helps assess team throughput and backlog health.
7. Legal team time spent on different types of requests (marketing, HR, sales, IP, etc.): Shows where the team’s time is going and how aligned it is with business priorities.
8. Number of new legal requests each month/quarter: Useful for spotting trends in demand over time.
9. Legal costs per matter: Reveals how expensive each matter is to the business and where you might reduce costs.

Commercial legal metrics

Commercial metrics focus on legal’s role in supporting revenue-generating activities, especially around contracts. For in-house legal teams, these metrics provide visibility into contract volume, turnaround times, and team workload, as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of the contracting process. They also help general counsel better align with sales, procurement, and other business units, identify friction points, and ensure that legal is helping accelerate—not delay—deal flow and business outcomes.

10. Total number of contracts by type over time: Tracks contract volume and provides insight into business activity.
11. Number of new contract requests each month/quarter: Helps forecast workload and staffing needs.
12. Legal involvement percentage for contracts by type: Measures how involved legal is in different kinds of deals.
13. Percentage of agreements on company paper vs. third-party paper: Company paper typically shortens negotiation time and reduces risk.
14. Approval times by different approval teams (account, product, infosec, etc.): Highlights inter-team blockers during contract review.
15. Average deal closure times for sales requests, measured across industry verticals: Shows how long it takes to close deals depending on the sector. Can help with expectation setting and resource allocation.
16. Requests assigned/closed per team member over time: Identifies productivity trends and possible legal burnout.
17. Average legal cost per agreement over time and compared to goal: Tracks efficiency and cost discipline in contract review.
18. Value of agreements requiring legal review overall, as a percentage of all deals, or by contract type: Helps justify legal’s role in high-value deals.
19. Total number of outsourced contracts over time: Useful for understanding reliance on external support.
20. Average assignment time for new agreements requiring legal support: A measure of responsiveness and intake speed.

Intellectual property metrics

For companies with a focus on innovation, intellectual property (IP) is a key asset, and protecting it is a critical responsibility of the legal team. These metrics help GCs track the health and growth of the company’s IP portfolio, from invention disclosures to patent filings and trademark registrations. Monitoring these metrics allows legal leaders to support research and development, encourage inventor participation, and ensure that the organization builds and protects long-term competitive advantages.

21. Number of inventions submitted: Reflects the company’s pace of innovation.
22. Number of patent applications filed: Shows how many inventions are being protected through patents.
23. Number of new inventors: Helps track engagement across teams and departments.
24. Company portfolio trajectory: Provides a high-level view of how the IP portfolio is growing or changing.
25. Number of patents granted: A key success metric for your IP strategy.
26. Number of trademark and domain/clearance registrations: Measures brand protection and market readiness.

Legal budget and spend metrics

In a world where legal departments are increasingly expected to operate like business units, tracking budget and spend is non-negotiable. These metrics give general counsel insight into where money is going—internally and externally—and whether spending is aligned with business goals. With this data, legal leaders can manage their budgets more effectively, demonstrate ROI, negotiate better rates with outside counsel, and make smarter resourcing decisions.

27. Total cost of legal: A top-level view of legal spend.
28. Internal vs. external spend ratio: Helps evaluate whether the team relies too heavily on outside counsel.
29. Total legal spend as a percentage of annual revenue: Useful for benchmarking legal costs against company growth.
30. Total spend within the annual budget: Tracks fiscal discipline.
31. Budget against actual spend (by month): Flags budget overruns early.
32. Outside counsel spend by business, firm, location, and practice area: Shows where outside spend is going and whether it’s aligned with perceived needs.
33. Allocation of outside counsel spend: Helps optimize vendor management and panel firm usage.
34. The ratio of full-time lawyers to overall internal and external legal spend: Evaluates the cost efficiency of your team structure.

‍Litigation metrics for in-house teams

Litigation is often high-cost and high-risk, so legal departments need to stay on top of case volume, resolution speed, and spend. Over time, this data also supports more strategic decision-making about when to settle, how to allocate litigation budgets, and which matters may require extra attention from leadership.

35. Litigation as a percentage of overall spend: Helps GCs understand how much of the budget goes to litigation.
36. Number of cases settled/resolved in a month: Measures legal closure rate.
37. Number of cases settled in a quarter valued over set dollar thresholds: Highlights high-stakes litigation activity.
38. Number of settled cases per quarter; of that, the number that were high-risk: Shows how much high-risk litigation is being resolved.
39. Number of key litigation milestones reached in a month: Useful for tracking case progress.
40. Average costs of litigation matter quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year: Keeps tabs on how litigation costs are trending.

Compliance and risk metrics

In-house legal teams are a key line of defense against business risk. Metrics in this category help GCs monitor potential vulnerabilities, track training and policy effectiveness, and understand how well the company is mitigating regulatory, operational, and reputational risk. With the right data, legal can prioritize high-risk matters and drive a culture of compliance, protecting the organization before problems escalate.

41. Compliance incidents over time: Tracks how well policies work and where issues repeat.
42. Compliance training completion rate for employees: A baseline compliance health metric.
43. Data privacy incident rate: Critical for understanding data protection performance.
44. Percentage of high-risk matters compared to total: Helps gauge your overall risk profile.
45. Average resolution time for high-risk matters: Shows how quickly your team addresses top-priority issues.
46. Resource allocation by risk tier: Reveals whether your resources are aligned with risk exposure.

Next up: Identifying the metrics that matter most

These 46 legal metrics are a great starting point, but collecting data is only the first step. The real value comes from identifying which of these metrics align with your company’s current goals and choosing key legal department KPIs that drive action and accountability. 

Ready to go deeper? Learn out how to unlock a data-driven mindset for your team, set targets, and build a legal reporting strategy that actually supports decision-making in our complete guide to legal data analytics for GCs.