Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
dling a greater volume and complexity of work, much of which was
once outsourced to law firms. Many in-house departments now take a
business approach to legal delivery that includes utilizing business, IT,
and procurement professionals to vet outside legal service providers
An org chart of large in-house departments often has a dizzying array
of titles, many with “General” “Chief,” and “Senior.” Some in-house
departments have their own Chief Financial Officers — not to be confused
with the C-suite variety — who manage the financial side of legal
operations, both inside out. An increasing number of companies engage
Procurement to vet legal providers and to serve as gatekeepers. Final selection
of law firms generally remains with the GC or senior designees,
but Procurement is frequently the decision maker when it comes to legal
service companies (e-Discovery, staffing, IT products, etc.).
Knowing which portal to enter has become key to being in the hunt for
securing legal business. And it’s not always easy to know which door to
knock on because companies rarely provide sellers with lineup cards.
Sound like a contemporary legal version of “Let’s Make A Deal?” It
does to me, too.
How and Why Did Things Get So Complicated?
It is difficult to assign a precise date to when selling legal services became
so complicated. Disaggregation—“unbundling”—began about
15 years ago when Tom Friedman taught us “The World is Flat.” <strong>Legal</strong>
process outsourcing, a fancy term for offshore rather than domestic labor
arbitrage, took hold as did the rise of legal staffing companies. Not
long after, “alternative law firms” that eschewed the traditional partner
model and service providers offering legal services but not “engaged in
the practice of law emerged.
And, though it was in its infancy, technology emerged as an integral
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