Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
What’s The Message?
There are too many high-priced lawyers vying for a dwindling supply
of outsourced corporate legal work. And they are too expensive- save
for those lawyers who are performing the critical judgment work-while
operating within the traditional law firm structure. Already, law firms
are experiencing changes in their hierarchical models brought on by
client resistance to the rates charged by “support” lawyers (those not
exercising judgment and performing more routine tasks). Those lawyers
are valuable, but their value increasingly is challenged by clients
when delivered from large law firms. This presents great opportunities
for creative lawyers to harness collaborative technology to deliver
services on a more client-centric, transparent and value-driven basis.
Some are already starting to do so, chipping away at BigLaw’s hegemony
over outsourced corporate legal business. And, until those new
providers achieve greater market penetration, in-house legal departments
will continue to grow.
Think this is all theoretical fluff? I was privy to a recent bid process
involving an AmLaw 100 firm and a fledgling legal service provider vying
for a portfolio of contract work. The law firm made an “aggressive”
$600,000 fixed-price bid; the service provider bid $70,000-at what I later
learned was a thirty-five percent margin. The service provider got the
work, and the client was pleased by the job, noting its effective use of
legal and technological resources and its capture of data for future use.
Message to law firms: it’s not about the firm structure or brand much
longer, especially for matters-or portfolios-that do not require a high
degree of specialized expertise or significant judgment. And for those
that do, sophisticated clients are beginning to insist upon a supply chain
rather than a law firm doing all the work internally.
Again, this presents opportunities for lawyers-and entrepreneurs-to
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