Practical Law has published a report on the results of the survey I previously wrote about which sought to examine how in-house lawyers, and the organisations they work in, were approaching Brexit.
The report can be accessed here and is also available in PDF format.
Many thanks to all those who responded to the survey questions and provided their comments, and to those who contributed to formulation of both the survey and the report.
Most striking to me when putting the report together was the fact that while in-house lawyers are playing a key role in their organisations’ Brexit plans (with over 93% of ‘Brexit teams’ including a lawyer and a fifth of them being headed by a lawyer), two thirds of respondents said that they were spending 5% or less of their time on Brexit. This may be because, after an initial period of activity and strategising, the current uncertainty around the terms of Brexit (mentioned repeatedly as a concern in participants’ comments) precludes making detailed plans at the moment. The workload is likely to increase, however, as almost half of respondents (47.7%) told us that they would be dealing with Brexit using their internal legal resources alone.
The results also include statistics on:
- How organisations are keeping their staff informed.
- Issues encountered in recruiting EU nationals since the Brexit vote.
- Impact on organisations’ contractual relationships to date.
- Contractual and other steps being taken as ‘futureproofing’ measures.
- Whether respondents’ organisations have made, or intend to make, submissions to the government on how it should deal with Brexit.
Respondents worked in a wide range of industries and at different levels within their organisations, with almost a fifth being General Counsel and other senior roles well-represented.
For more materials on the legal implications of Brexit, see Practical Law’s Brexit landing page and, for an in-house perspective, see this recent article by Chris Newby and James Middleton of AIG EMEA, Planning for Brexit: a practical perspective.
