Legal outsourcing or legal process outsourcing (LPO) as it is more commonly known is not a new phenomenon. It has been a practice that has grown and developed over a period of time as it has become clear that a team of trained lawyers cannot be experts across all fields and departments that require their attention.
As professional firms who market themselves as the best resourced in town to cater across all legal matters, matching that rhetoric with a sound framework of support behind the scenes becomes a difficult task.
Given the amount of services there are on hand to fill in the gaps and provide an asset to legal brands, there are clearly opportunities to capitalise on for the sake of the firm and their clientele.
So what exactly is the relationship like between the legal community and the practice of outsourcing? Will this become common practice or will firms be forced to develop their own in-house operations that expand beyond the court house?
Doubts Over Expertise
Due to the limited scope of outsourcing being delivered to legal firms in Australia over the past 10-20 years, there are doubts and concerns about the quality of service from these providers. This has hampered and slowed down the transition between legal entities and businesses that are seeking more permanent ties to cater to departments like IT, analytics, SEO, document writing and applying software to existing and new computer platforms.
Important for IT Facets of the Firm
Information technology (IT) is seen as an ideal means of bringing legal firms into the 21st Century as it cuts down on costs and ensures that the client is receiving the most up to date service possible. It therefore becomes an obvious scenario whereby lawyers are only skilled at particular aspects of IT and it is imperative upon them to access the right degree of expertise. Here is where outsourced parties are introduced to the equation.
Pressure Delivered By High End Business Clients
Rather than single clients being aggressive in their demands for legal firms to provide an array of services, studies have found that this push and transition is deriving mostly from high end businesses in their dealings.
With business to business (B2B) relationships carrying out regularly across various niches, there are basic expectations for efficiency and speed of service in 2018 that was not evident in past years. The end goal for each and every outsourced option is to deliver a practice that is as efficiency as humanly possible.
