Outsourcing legal processes to other companies that specialize in a niche opens a new level of ability, productivity and quality output that exceeds client expectations while cutting costs.
Outsourcing particular processes or task items allows a firm more time to specialize or expand a firm, save resources, meet deadlines, enable flexibility and more work-life balance for staff, move toward a flat-fee billing model, support global commerce, cut process completion time for increased efficiency, integrate digital resources and enhance client experience all at once.
According to Clio, before a legal firm can outsource its task and processes, it has to understand its own strengths and whether other companies may offer greater strength efficiently to create an ideal collaboration able to produce high-quality work.
"Historically, law firms generally handled almost every activity that was considered part of a legal matter. Companies delegated an entire matter to a law firm and the firm made the decision as to what to keep in-house or what to outsource (not surprisingly, very little was outsourced)," Bob Rowe, Integreon CEO, said during an interview with Law.com. "More recently, and I think with the rise of the e-discovery industry as well as legal operations, questions have arisen as to whether certain activities that supported the practice of law, but not considered to be the practice of law themselves, could be better handled by individuals/companies outside of the traditional structure and model of a law firm or legal team."
Rowe said this is highly beneficial for consumers of legal services.
"This is where ALSPs entered the scene—identifying business processes that related to or supported a legal activity. As I mentioned earlier, there are very different skills sets required to be a successful lawyer at a law firm vs. a successful ALSP company focusing on scalable business processes...This evolution is beneficial for the overall market, allowing increased innovation and more efficient processes for specific activities," he said.
According to Thomson Reuters and the Georgetown Law Center for the Study of the Legal Profession, $6.2 billion is spent for legal process outsourcing, e-discovery and document review service providers annually.
A 2019 Altman Weil Survey reports 48% of law firms surveyed use contract lawyers, 57% report using part-time lawyers and 24.1% report outsourcing non-lawyer functions, according to Clio.
For a firm that has a client needing legal work not practiced by a lawyer within the firm itself, outsourcing specific law services to freelance lawyers allows a firm to meet the needs of a wider range of customers. Outsourcing cases or particular projects to freelance lawyers paid a flat-fee offers firms the benefit of qualified legal work at a lower cost and diverts workloads off of other staff to allow a healthier work-life balance.
Specialized legal outsourcing companies offers firms access to remote lawyers around the world so work can be completed around the clock. Having an outsourcing company dedicated to research and written projects will enhance accuracy and data security and handling document reviews will prevent overloading in-house resources with tedious tasks.
As the legal process outsources globally, new industry trends are emerging. The focus is growing on digital integration of information as well as the emergence of virtual firms and hybrid combination firms. Artificial intelligence and automation is an emerging trend in terms of legal document processing and management and allows documents to be processed. E-discovery, information research, data input and other specific-type administrative tasks can be done at higher productivity, efficiency and convenience at lower costs.
According to SuperStaff, a study comparing document reviews performed manually compared to a machine to assess the speed and accuracy of output found it took participating lawyers an average of 92 minutes to review five documents at a 85% accuracy. The software was able to review five documents in only 23 minutes at 94% accuracy.
The combined efforts of outsource processes and tasks provides not only higher productivity with a lower price tag, but also allows firms to remain more organized, create better database and management systems and more efficiently enhance client experiences. According to SuperStaff, 74% of clients are angry, anxious, scared or carry other "negative" emotions early in legal proceedings. More time spent with clients allows a better relationship to be built and clients to feel more calm.
The digitization of law firms due to technology advancements are allowing firms to reach clients at a global level and show a "commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion."