Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
ply chain in a vertical where, until relatively recently, law firms were
the sole outsourced legal service providers.
Electronic discovery has exponentially increased the volume of dataand
ironic that technology generally drives costs down and promotes
efficiency except with law firms. At the same time, privilege, relevance,
and other legal precepts governing the production and evidentiary value
of that data have scarcely changed. What is different is client unwillingness
to pay BigLaw rates for high volume, low value work such as
document review.
<strong>Legal</strong> Work Delivered Outside Law Firms
Lawyers still sift through data and maintain privilege logs, but now they
frequently do so while working for lower cost service providers, not
law firms. And the top service providers have invested in technologynot
to mention project managers- to promote efficiency and to deliver
legal services at rates commensurate with the value that clients ascribe
to the task. The traditional law firm structure, designed for profit-perpartner
but not conducive to competitive pricing for such repetitive
work, has fueled the growth of “alternative providers”. Many of those
service providers perform legal functions but operate from a corporate
rather than a partnership model. Plus, service providers can-and do-often
engage in inter-disciplinary practice with technologists, engineers,
accountants, and project managers working side-by-side with lawyers.
My take: this is the present mimicking the future.
Top service providers, consultancies, and legal technology companies—all
of whom employ lawyers (as well as other service professionals)-
have access to institutional funding to acquire technological
advantage, top management as well as domain experts. All this fuels
growth and brand development.
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