Not A Good Idea: Placing the Legend on either sides of the chart when it contains long legend item labels can cause problems as shown below. The long text labels push the bars which scales the chart content to become smaller. In turn it causes the bottom labels to overlap each other making them hard to read.

A Good Idea: A better option is to place the Legend at the bottom to allow enough space for long legend item labels. This way the width of the chart allows more space for long text labels. As a result, the bars do not get pushed together and the bottom labels remain readable under the tic marks.

Also see our recommendations for long tic labels here:
http://www.visualmining.com/good-good-ideas-chart-design-long-labels/

Stay tuned for more tips on design approaches! If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at support@visualmining.com.