Legal Mosaic Essays on Legal Delivery

<strong>Legal</strong> <strong>Mosaic</strong>: <strong>Essays</strong> on <strong>Legal</strong> Delivery
Conclusion
It has become a popular parlor game for legal pundits to predict how,
when, and by whom legal service delivery will be disrupted. There is
no longer much debate whether disruption will occur. The question is
in what form and by whom.
But the real story in legal delivery change is the ascent of new providers
coupled with the precipitous uptick of corporate work now performed
in-house. And there is also the increasing willingness of corporate legal
departments to outsource work to service providers, not law firms.
And while the contours of these changes are being shaped, it’s clear
that the hegemony law firms once held over the delivery of legal services
is now in the rear view mirror. Likewise, the days of lawyers
performing all tasks associated with handling a “legal” matter, are over.
Lawyers, like doctors, will now perform only core services for which
they were trained. This includes providing legal expertise, high-value
judgment, and representation whether before tribunals or in the corporate
boardroom.
Everything else in the legal delivery process can leverage other disciplines
and paraprofessionals- or see lawyers working outside the highpriced
traditional law firm partnership model. This means that some
lawyers might continue to perform non-core tasks, but they will do so
working under different business models at lower cost and compensation
levels.
As explored in this collection of essays, the legal delivery supply chain
is undergoing a period of rapid development and transformation. The
days of law firms having a stranglehold over legal delivery have given
way to the rise of in-house lawyers and departments, legal service
companies, and technology companies “productizing” tasks that were
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