Outsourced legal processing is revolutionizing the way legal departments operate. For many organizations, legal is viewed as a roadblock to business. Legal operations professionals can serve as the intermediary between business units and lawyers to enable legal departments to deliver more impactful services.
From people, processes, and technology through department-wide strategy and benchmarking, legal teams can resolve issues faster and more efficiently by outsourcing their legal operations function to a managed service provider. Below, we’ll explore how businesses can unlock turnkey legal operations efficiency by outsourcing their legal process to a high-quality fixed-fee concierge law firm.
Legal Ops is Growing, Is Your Business Ready?
Legal operations, commonly referred to as “legal ops,” is a field that has been expanding rapidly in recent years. Part communicator, part change-management expert, a legal ops professional sits within legal departments to manage and deliver processes that adapt to changing priorities and business needs within a company.
One factor driving the growth of legal operations is the need for greater cost efficiency and better management of legal budgets. With a focus on data, as well as people, process, and technology improvements, Legal Ops assist legal departments to streamline operations and provide more effective legal services. By applying business and technical practices, legal operations enable strategic planning, financial management, project management, and technology expertise, allowing lawyers to focus on providing legal advice.
With the increasing complexity of legal and regulatory requirements, as well as a growing volume of data and information that legal departments need to manage, outsourced legal process and operations professionals—such as those employed by a fixed-fee concierge law firm—are trained to use technology and data analysis to provide better insights and solutions to their clients.
Legal operations is becoming an increasingly important and in-demand field within the legal industry—and organizations like CLOC are helping to standardize the discipline. As these professionals become more in demand, many law firms and corporate legal departments are realizing the value of outsourcing legal processes to managed legal services providers so they can dedicate more time to better serving their clients.
Legal process outsourcing, sometimes referred to as LPO services, are provided by third-party companies that offer a range of legal services to law firms, corporate legal departments, and other organizations. Legal process outsourcing typically includes projects such as contract management, compliance, risk management, and other critical business services.
The fee structure can vary depending on the specific service being provided, the complexity of the project, and the experience level of the service provider. Some common fee structures for LPO services:
- Retainer: a monthly or annual fee for ongoing legal support services.
- Project-based billing: only pay a fixed-fee for completed work.
- Volume-based pricing: typically, a discounted rate for larger volumes of work.
- Hourly billing: a set hourly rate for the time spent on the project.
An additional legal process outsourcing model is fixed-fee, where a set amount is charged for the completion of a specific project or service. Enlisting a high-quality fixed-fee concierge law firm for managed legal process and operations services is a high-value option that can help organizations realize the maximum business impact.
The Role of AI in Outsourced Legal Processes
Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in outsourced legal processes. LPO providers are using AI tools to automate routine tasks such as document review, contract management and analysis, e-Discovery, and automating workflows, which can increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Though many businesses acknowledge the benefits of increased efficiency made possible by automation, the use of AI in outsourced legal processes raises concerns about data privacy and security, as well as the potential for bias in AI algorithms. It’s important for LPO providers to be transparent about their use of AI and that they ensure compliance with legal and ethical standards.
How modCounsel’s Fixed-fee Managed Legal Services Model can Drive Value via Legal Process Outsourcing
At modCounsel, we offer a turnkey approach to legal process outsourcing. We operate with the belief that fixed-fee legal operations is a strategic driver for modern legal teams moving our industry forward. That’s why our legal operations offering features industry-leading partnerships as well as access to our deeply-experienced team of legal professionals.
Legal operations and technology
Legal process outsourcing with modCounsel’s fixed-fee model can help companies achieve ROI for legal activities such as contracts, compliance, privacy, workflows, and securities management.
Our legal operations and technology services include:
- Contract lifecycle management
- Streamlined AI implementation strategy and solution development
- Governance risk and compliance management
- Legal technology tool selection and implementation
Legal operations and process
When companies are preparing for their first legal operations hire or transitioning a team member into a new role, a managed service model such as modCounsel can deliver operational support, workflow development, and training.
Our team can also assist with legal operations and process tasks in areas such as:
- Informing business decisions through use of data
- Creating training and development programs
- Defining effective and efficient request for proposals (RFPs)
- Analyzing data and developing cost-effective workflows
- Designing information policies that help your business minimize risk
- Facilitating knowledge hubs or centers of influence across your organization
- Supporting high-impact legal teams by minimizing distraction from operational tasks
- Managing department-wide and company-wide initiatives
- Establishing and maintaining relationships with vendors best suited to deliver desired outcomes
- Implementing clear, comprehensive guidelines for sharing and retaining information.
- Delivering consistency to budgeting and financial planning and improving compliance with finance departments
- Designing and implementing a technology roadmap to improve the speed and quality of which your organization can deliver services
Legal department strategy and benchmarking
At modCounsel, we believe that legal teams are not a cost center, but a revenue protector. On top of our legal process outsourcing offerings, our experienced legal professionals can help you develop a three-year legal operations plan.
Our legal operations practice can help your business with:
- Vendor management and outside counsel spend analysis
- Financial planning (budgeting, reporting, and management)
- Strategic planning, restructuring, and training
- Due diligence and data room management
- Knowledge management (records, tools, project, and compliance)
- Technology-assisted document review and legal risk audits
- Investigations and litigation from strategy to execution
- Data breach response team, audit response, and reporting
At modCounsel, we firmly believe that legal operations is a key contributor to the strategic growth of every business. Our fixed-fee managed legal service model enables our clients to access experienced legal professionals with a deep bench of industry knowledge to accomplish their legal process outsourcing goals.
modCounsel: Legal Operations Outsourcing that Delivers
We believe that as a high-quality fixed-fee law firm, modCouncel can offer growth companies legal process outsourcing that enables strategic impact, team effectiveness, and the timely achievement of critical company milestones.
Hit more business milestones
Ready to empower your teams with proven capabilities in technology, processes, and people? Reach out today to learn more about how our legal team can help you achieve more.
References:
Thomson Reuters: “Ready or not: artificial intelligence and corporate legal departments.”
