2026 Benchmark Report
The True Cost of Legal Friction
Legal
Friction
In-house legal teams are stretched thin — and the business is feeling it. New benchmark data from 467 professionals shows where the friction is coming from, what it's costing, and how the best teams are fixing it.
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52%
say Legal is a checkpoint that slows momentum — or an outright bottleneck
66%
bypass formal legal channels at least occasionally to keep projects moving
80%
have zero or limited visibility into the status of a legal request
What’s inside
What you'll find in the report
Based on a survey of 467 full-time professionals across Sales, HR, Marketing, Product, Finance, and Compliance, this benchmark report provides data-backed answers to the questions your organization is already asking — plus detailed segment cuts by department, company size, role, and industry.
01
The Speed Problem
The bottleneck is rarely the attorney—it’s the
system they are working in.
02
The Visibility Problem
Attorneys know where things stand. They have no easy mechanism to share that visibility with the people waiting on them.
03
The Workaround Problem
The legal workaround is so common in most organizations that it has become normalized. That normalization should concern everyone.
04
The Perception Gap
Perception follows experience. This year's data captures a perception threshold worth taking seriously.
05
Segment Deep Dives
Data cuts by department, company size, role/seniority, and industry — with callouts on where friction is most acute and where investment will have the greatest ROI.
06
The Path Forward
Four operational levers that reduce friction without reducing rigor, and how legal ops technology serves as the force multiplier.
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