Page 87 - 2019 - Leaders in Legal Business (n)
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This means that clients may now consider hiring such firms for regularly repeating work or to do
work out of the country if the ABS firm doesn’t operate in the client’s home jurisdiction. The
entrants in this market — unlike some of their vendor counterparts that start small and have to
grow the hard way — are often large and well financed. This draws participation from the likes of
the traditional accounting firms/consulting practices (such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG,
Deloitte, etc.) and newly-structured law firms with outside investors (such as Riverview Law) and
more, to do their work. How these firms will fit into clients’ portfolios and the larger legal
landscape (whether their entry will change everything or very little) remains to be seen, but clearly
they will create greater competition via more definite and clearly articulated pricing and service
strategies; a re-shifting of top talent as new practices open and steal top-name experts and practice
groups; and probably some firm merger mania, all of which will inevitably affect clients’ decisions
about which firms to hire with the correct value proposition for their work…
5. Outsourcing to vendors:
Clients are being offered an ever-increasing number of options beyond sending work they
can’t staff internally to lawyers in firms or some other structure that contracts lawyers to staff
client matters. They’re making more and more use of them each year, sometimes exponentially
growing the percentage of work they’re sending on an annual basis as they get more comfortable
with the concepts. LPOs (on-shore and off-shore legal process outsourcers), e-discovery vendors,
litigation support companies, firm service centers, and more are creating predictably priced service
options for clients who wish to buy a particular “product” or a talented and highly trained team to
deliver a pre-defined set of results at a fixed cost (as opposed to undefined work often thrown over
the wall to a law firm that was told to get going on it, figure it out, and then anticipate that the
client would argue with the firms over the invoice later). These kinds of companies first showed
up in India, Singapore, and other cheaper-workforce/highly-educated labor markets, but now are
just as likely to be found in West Virginia, Northern Ireland, or even in a big law firms’ back office
operations somewhere in the hinterlands, away from the high-price real estate and labor market
where the big firm opens its offices.
6. Hot technologies in law departments:
There’s a lot of attention (even if relatively little actual action) on knowledge-based
systems that allow the department to automate or process-manage routine functions. These are
extremely popular, even if only fully implemented in relatively few departments in a sophisticated
fashion (something beyond a Word or Excel spreadsheet, for instance). These include contract
management systems that allow departments to encourage business managers to self-serve their
own negotiation and contracting processes, as well as work platforms that drive the increased use
of template work processes or decision-trees for commonly repeating matters.
No matter what a law office chooses to use or what sort of projects they have, there is an
option for legal outsourcing that will fit into any budget. This is true whether the firm brings in an
experienced professional or sends the work overseas to vendors; the end result will be a quality
product — and a new professional contact in a rapidly shrinking legal landscape.
72
work out of the country if the ABS firm doesn’t operate in the client’s home jurisdiction. The
entrants in this market — unlike some of their vendor counterparts that start small and have to
grow the hard way — are often large and well financed. This draws participation from the likes of
the traditional accounting firms/consulting practices (such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG,
Deloitte, etc.) and newly-structured law firms with outside investors (such as Riverview Law) and
more, to do their work. How these firms will fit into clients’ portfolios and the larger legal
landscape (whether their entry will change everything or very little) remains to be seen, but clearly
they will create greater competition via more definite and clearly articulated pricing and service
strategies; a re-shifting of top talent as new practices open and steal top-name experts and practice
groups; and probably some firm merger mania, all of which will inevitably affect clients’ decisions
about which firms to hire with the correct value proposition for their work…
5. Outsourcing to vendors:
Clients are being offered an ever-increasing number of options beyond sending work they
can’t staff internally to lawyers in firms or some other structure that contracts lawyers to staff
client matters. They’re making more and more use of them each year, sometimes exponentially
growing the percentage of work they’re sending on an annual basis as they get more comfortable
with the concepts. LPOs (on-shore and off-shore legal process outsourcers), e-discovery vendors,
litigation support companies, firm service centers, and more are creating predictably priced service
options for clients who wish to buy a particular “product” or a talented and highly trained team to
deliver a pre-defined set of results at a fixed cost (as opposed to undefined work often thrown over
the wall to a law firm that was told to get going on it, figure it out, and then anticipate that the
client would argue with the firms over the invoice later). These kinds of companies first showed
up in India, Singapore, and other cheaper-workforce/highly-educated labor markets, but now are
just as likely to be found in West Virginia, Northern Ireland, or even in a big law firms’ back office
operations somewhere in the hinterlands, away from the high-price real estate and labor market
where the big firm opens its offices.
6. Hot technologies in law departments:
There’s a lot of attention (even if relatively little actual action) on knowledge-based
systems that allow the department to automate or process-manage routine functions. These are
extremely popular, even if only fully implemented in relatively few departments in a sophisticated
fashion (something beyond a Word or Excel spreadsheet, for instance). These include contract
management systems that allow departments to encourage business managers to self-serve their
own negotiation and contracting processes, as well as work platforms that drive the increased use
of template work processes or decision-trees for commonly repeating matters.
No matter what a law office chooses to use or what sort of projects they have, there is an
option for legal outsourcing that will fit into any budget. This is true whether the firm brings in an
experienced professional or sends the work overseas to vendors; the end result will be a quality
product — and a new professional contact in a rapidly shrinking legal landscape.
72
