Alternative Legal Service Providers
The Practice
July/August 2019
As more and more alternative legal service providers emerge, we examine the state of the market. How are traditional firms reacting? What are clients demanding?
July/August 2019
Taking the “Alternative” Out of Alternative Legal Service Providers
The characterization of the range of new legal providers competing for a share of the global corporate legal services market is fundamentally flawed. This is not because we are about to witness “the death of big law” or, even more dramatically, “the end of lawyers.” But the ecosystem in which both law firms and a wide range of other providers will compete is one that will require the integration of law into broader “business solutions."
Everyone’s a Law Company
While the trajectory of "alternative legal services providers" has been taken by some as the latest death knell for big law, their growth is rooted in a familiar force within the legal profession—client demands for cost-effectiveness and, increasingly, value-based legal services. ALSPs helping to transform the delivery of legal services—and rightly so—but it is likewise important to examine why clients are now willing to pay and trust them.
Developments in the “Alternative” Legal Services Market
The sheer quantity of developments in the ALSP market—amid an already rapid pace of change—is breathtaking. And it is happening in real time. Thus, any aspirationally complete understanding of the ALSP ecosystem requires a close monitoring of what’s “in the news.”
Managing to Deliver?
A host of ALSPs are now employing the term “managed” to describe their service offerings, whether those services focus on document review, e-discovery, analytics, or other areas. Yet, while “managed services” has clearly entered the ALSP lexicon, the term itself remains somewhat ambiguous. Put simply, what exactly are managed (legal) services?
The Evolving Global Supply Chain for Legal Services
Vikramaditya Khanna examines how the developing and increasingly global supply chain for legal services, including the emergence of legal process outsourcing (LPO) to countries like India, impacts the employment of lawyers in the United States.
The Changes Keep Coming
Brian Peccarelli, chief operating officer of Thomson Reuters, sat down with David B. Wilkins for a conversation on the growth of the alternative legal services industry.
