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Professional-services consulting firm Hildebrandt International has released its Law Department Survey for 2009, providing a new set of benchmarking data related to how companies in the U.S. and worldwide are using both inside and outside counsel. This year, 231 companies of all sizes in a variety of industries participated in the survey.

Predictably, the recession of the past year has affected the way companies hire and use outside counsel. However, despite slight declines in spending measured as a percentage of revenue, overall spending on outside counsel grew in the past year. And firms willing to to negotiate alternative billing arrangements might find their way to more outside-counsel work.

Some highlights from the 2009 Hildebrandt Law Department Survey:

The Federal Trade Commission is on a mission to control identity theft. But the American Bar Association says that it is overreaching and bringing new and unwarranted federal regulation down upon lawyers, and it has filed a suit to try to stop the enforcement of new FTC rules.

The FTC has been planning for some time to implement the so-called "Red Flags Rule," which will require covered businesses to put in place certain safeguards against the theft of their customers' identities. The underlying legislation, and therefore the FTC rules, mandate that "creditors" be subject to the rules.

Here's a way to work around recession-ravaged travel budgets, and actually get in front of your clients, or go to a trade show or bar association meeting. JetBlue will be offering a sort of frequent-flier buffet next month, launching the "All-You-Can-Jet Pass." So badly does JetBlue want you in the air that they are offering the equivalent of a bus pass for air travel: $599 allows you to fly anywhere JetBlue goes, anytime from September 8 to October 8.

You'll just have to book a flight at least 3 days in advance, and off you go. Cancellation fees and penalties apply in pretty much the standard fashion, with one addition: no-showing for a flight will get your pass suspended until you pony up a $100 penalty. (We're pretty sure that never happens with bus passes.)

The state of California, mired in a months-long budget stalemate, finally began issuing IOUs instead of cash for some of its obligations earlier this month. The IOUs, officially known as "registered warrants," will mature later this year, and in the meantime will accrue tax-free interest. Many major banks in California are now declining to accept the warrants, leaving many warrant-holders in a temporary cash crunch, looking for ways to trade or sell their warrants now in exchange for cash.

Now comes word that the federal government has stepped in to regulate warrant trading. The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, an entity overseen by the Securities and Exhcange Commission, stated its opinion late last week that the California warrants are "municipal securities" subject to certain federal securities laws.

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has alerted me to a new practice area that is heating up thanks to the continually deteriorating economy: WARN Act cases are apparently poised to become a hot topic of litigation over the coming months.

The WARN Act (or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) is designed to give workers who work in certain locations for companies covered by the act a 60 day cushion before a round of mass layoffs.  The problem is that many companies are now claiming that the nature of the current downturn has prevented them from providing the requisite notice because events transpired too quickly to allow the business to wait before performing layoffs.

Dan Slater, the former writer of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, has an interesting piece in today's New York Times called "In Praise of Law Firm Layoffs".  In the article, Slater makes the argument that the current wave of layoffs that is currently sucking thousands of attorneys down in the undertow is actually the best thing to happen to the legal profession in a long time.

Slater first lists the benefits to corporate counsel who have long suffered through law firm compensation models that emphasize the quantity of billable hours over the quality of the work product.

When business gets slow, it can be a good idea to take on some pro bono cases in order to keep active and spread the word about your firm.  Pro bono work offers attorneys the chance to engage in some professional networking and learn about different areas of the law, all while doing good.

The only problem with pro bono work is that it's pro bono.  Attorneys don't get paid, and complicated cases can result in a large amount of expenses, which can be hard to deal with when the economy is already slumping.

Apparently it's not just Jon and Kate Gosselin: family law attorneys are reporting a wave of new activity around divorce actions, child support settlements and alimony arrangements according to an article in the National Law Journal. 

The Jon and Kate Plus 8 stars apparently filed for divorce today, but attorneys say that the rising tide of family law actions has been growing for several months.  Most place the blame squarely on the recession.  According to the NLJ piece, attorneys are witnessing three main trends:

You work hard to make your money, especially in tough times when business can be hard to come by.  The last thing you want is for a partner or employee to steal money from the cookie jar while you're concentrating on representing your clients.

Unfortunately, if you're a small firm or solo attorney, it's much more likely to happen to you than it is to a large or mid-size firm.

In its ongoing series on the effects of the economic meltdown on the legal industry, the Legal Intelligencer postulates that many lawyers currently at large, international firms will jump ship and move to smaller, more local firms.

This represents a potential coup for mid-level firms, as they can jump in and recruit come top talent away from the AmLaw 100.