A new solution law firm with traditional values
Just as every segment in today’s business environment, in-house legal departments are looking for ways to cut costs and increase efficiency. While traditional law firms have dominated the outsourced legal market in the past, growing competition is expanding the offerings from which general counsel can choose.
Legal Solutions Network (LSN) emerges from among the numerous new-solution legal models as a virtual companion to your in-house legal services. As practicing lawyers in this ever-changing global marketplace, we understand that the legal industry needs to evolve, as well.
If you don’t have an in-house legal department, don’t worry. We’ll gladly pull up a virtual seat at your meeting table and offer whatever level of support you need.
Forgoing the traditional mahogany-laden office methods of old-style law firms, Legal Solutions Network is able to save its partners money. Take away the complex pyramid structure many firms cling to, and we also save time.
What Legal Solutions Network maintains, however, is the high-level of customer service and expert quality executives and general counsel expect. Instead of a turn-and-churn mentality, we take the time to get to know our clients’ business goals and missions.
Whether serving as your virtual on-call general counsel or helping to augment your existing legal team, Legal Solutions Network customizes its service to your needs. We offer several fee structures and can accommodate any sized company.
As online business relationships rapidly develop and reliance of Internet-based services expands, legal services become even more important in navigating the transitioning business environment. At Legal Solutions Network, we’re ready to jump in whenever you need us.
By having access through a designated representative in our Member program, before a negative or game-changing event, enables small to mid-size firms to benefit from the preventive strategies that larger firms implement as a matter of course. Proper use of contracts and corporate compliance handled routinely and economically will reduce the risks of litigation, loss of business opportunities and reduce the economic impact of any legal action that may occur.
Money matters
Access to the right specialty on the most economic terms is especially important during slow periods in the business cycle when legal problems increase, but the means to pay for the best professional advice is not so readily available.
Also larger firms that have in-house dept or substantial retainer agreements can benefit from economies of scale which include leveraging, outsourced assets and clerical support for cost-efficiencies.
Over the past decade, law firm prices rose 75 percent compared with a 20 percent increase in non-legal business costs. At the same time, a 2010 study by Hildebrandt Baker Robbins reported that the total amount spent on legal services shrunk for the first time in a decade.
According to Mike Roster, the former general counsel of Stanford University and past-chairman of the American Corporate Counsel Association, “the legal profession…created its own economic bubble. Now that bubble has burst.”
To cover their needed legal services, innovative general counsel are carefully evaluating their resource options. Many companies are increasing their use of external partners-with fees being the largest determinant of who to use.
The middle ground
In addition to cost analysis, senior legal executives now must ask a host of critical questions to determine which resource provider best fits their evolving business and legal needs. Considering the array of legal needs within a company, there’s usually more than one answer.
Analysts tend to agree that the most successful law firms in the future will be those that can adapt to the shifting requirements of in-house counsel, and this might mean calling upon a variety of different legal service provider models.
Undoubtedly, there is still a place in the legal landscape for traditional law firms who are specialized and cater to high-risk “bet-the-company” matters. Yet clients are increasingly recognizing that work previously considered highly complex is becoming routine and can be handled more cost- effectively by smaller or new model firms.
Run-the-company matters such as commercial contracts, licensing, regulatory compliance, employment counseling, real estate and small mergers are increasingly outsourced. And since these types of legal matters are more predictable work than bet-the-company issues, they are better suited for alternative pricing models, such as fixed fees and retainers that reduce total cost and improve cost predictability.
As a result, new model firms are cutting into middle-level law firm market share. By reducing overhead and ridding themselves of a partnership structure, these companies are able to charge clients up to 70 percent less than a traditional firm.
The proof is in the success of these new models. LSN is a new model firm which provides highly qualified legal counsel for outside alternatives to hundreds of companies, we have seen the demand increase first-hand from Global 100 companies to start-ups.
“Not only do we provide a World Class legal network of experienced, successful legal counsel for outside general counsel services but corporate “checkups”/legal audits using our expertise to bring a company “back to good corporate health” and to maintain it.” said LSN Founder, Elaine Papas. “We believe that companies are most effective when the law and legal counsel are included with the company’s business and legal departments and our low overhead business model lets us pass on saving to our clients while providing market-level compensation to our lawyers.”
Outsourcing Chief Legal Counsel service provides access to our high-level specialized support economically without compromising the quality of representation.
Once work is appropriately segmented, we offer affordable yet flexible solutions with alternative billing arrangements to respond to demand management, as well as cost and productivity challenges. These solutions can range from offering specialist advice to unbundling complex matters to managing spikes in workflow to the outsourcing of entire functions.
A third tier: Legal Process Outsourcing
For the more mundane, day-to-day work such as document review and contract administration, there is yet another growing tranche of firms available to the general counsel: LPOs.
Sound estimates of the value of the growing LPO industry are difficult to come by, but Forrester Research predicted that in the US $4 billion worth of legal work would be outsourced to India in 2015.
Global companies have often relied heavily on traditional firms for their legal work but are now increasingly looking for more cost-effective solutions. We have found that LSN bring a higher-level of more diverse practice experience that cannot be matched by traditional law firms in some areas of legal service.
Still, many believe worldwide consultants are not in direct competition with traditional law firms but instead can work alongside each another to support in-house counsel.
The future of legal counsel
Given so many choices, the task of managing the relationships and work of third-party providers not only requires a certain amount of expertise but can become a full-time job. Outsourcing Chief Legal Counsel service provides the access to high-level specialized support economically without compromising the quality of representation.
During a slow economy more so than any other time, small to mid-size companies are at a big disadvantage to compete for the best specialist in the legal area where they need assistance. Moreover, cost prohibitive rates prevent many such businesses from getting the representations they need which has very serious consequences for them down the road.
A primary shift has already begun in how general counsel run their legal departments. They are realizing the efficiency and cost-savings when staffing needs to be lean and as their Outside General, Legal Solutions Network can provide the spectrum of outsourced options. Access to the right specialty at the right time for the right fee.
There is more specialization in the legal fields and especially mid-level and smaller companies don’t always have the access to different types of expertise and the attorneys with whom they work will not always refer the work out to somebody who may be better equipped in a particular area.
We at Legal Solutions Network see a “New Normal” of legal services and practice where in-house General Counsels will look to partner with a one-stop firm like LSN to manage all of their ‘outside’ work, acting like a general contractor that manages relationships and work of the entire spectrum of outsourced providers.”
During a slow economy more so than any other time, small to mid-size companies are at a big disadvantage to compete for the best specialist in the legal area where they need assistance. Legal Solutions Network, your an alternative legal provider will enhance the services offered to companies but will not damage an elite group of top law firms who handle matters so big that price is immaterial.
The drive for cost effectiveness in this tier, where the work is the most commoditized and requires the least amount of technical expertise, has led to a new economic model. Instead of pricing services on a time-spent basis, billing has transitioned to product pricing on a per-unit basis. The shift from dollars-per-hour to dollars-per-contract or dollars-per-gigabyte will effectively shift the risk of inefficiency from the client to the provider, motivating the provider to function and price at the lowest marginal cost.
As the legal industry continues to shift and evolve, more emphasis will continue to be placed on efficiency and value delivered. And as more models and pricing methods arise, and companies that embrace innovative will survive.