Alternative Legal Service Providers Market Size
The report noted that ALSPs are a dominant segment of the legal market, as law firms and corporate legal departments have become increasingly open to partnering with ALSPs to drive growth and reduce costs. Our research involves a mix of primary and secondary research. Secondary research sources generally referred to include, but are not limited to, corporate websites, annual reports, financial reports, corporate pipeline charts, broker reports, investor presentations and SEC filings, journals and conferences, proprietary internal databases, press articles, press releases and webcasts specific to companies operating in a particular market. The often touted benefits of working with an ALSP (alternative legal service provider AKA law firms, law services firms, etc.) are lower rates, specialization, and efficiency. Due to these advantages, the use of ALSPs is increasing. In fact, some predict a 25% growth in outsourced legal services and the market share of other legal service providers over the next five years. ALSP services provided by the big four accounting firms have grown by a modest 8% per year, but they are increasingly focusing on two of their strengths that could accelerate growth again: advisory services and international expansion. Primary research includes email interactions with industry participants in key regions. Participants who typically participate in such a process include CEOs, Vice Presidents, Business Development Directors, Market Intelligence Managers, and National Sales Managers, among others. We rely mainly on internal searches and internal databases that we have filled out over the years.
We review the results of our secondary research with the primary respondents participating in the study. Leading Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) provide specialized, low-cost legal services to corporate clients and law firms. MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, WASHINGTON, D.C., & LONDON, February 11, 2021 – Alternative Legal Services (ALSP) has accelerated its growth to nearly $14 billion in market share worldwide and is rapidly becoming a mainstream segment of the legal market. Competition concerns are diminishing and law firms and corporate legal departments are increasingly open to partnering with ALSPs to drive growth and reduce costs. Expand the bank. ALSPs can also be used to “expand” the bank for legal departments and law firms through flexible (temporary) staff and outsourcing tasks that are repeatable or require less legal analysis, allowing in-house lawyers and law firm lawyers to focus on “higher” legal tasks. Meanwhile, independent ALSPs, which account for the largest share (about $12 billion) of the ALSP market, have grown by about 15 percent annually. ALSPs are “increasingly becoming the norm,” as Kevin Penton explained in Law360: “Law firms have taken note of a segment used by 79% of law firms themselves and 71% of corporate law departments, and have created their own `captive` suppliers, either as in-house entities or as subsidiaries.
Captives generated an estimated $480 million in revenue in 2019, a 60 percent increase in just two years, according to a recent report by Georgetown Law`s Center of Ethics and the Legal Profession and thomson Reuters Institute. “The alSP market is rapidly maturing to the point of becoming a common legal option rather than an `alternative`, paving the way for further growth,” said Mike Abbott, vice president of market knowledge and thought leadership at Thomson Reuters. Technology. Another advantage of using ALSP companies is that the technology is the most used – not only to get the job done, but also for the purpose of tracking metrics and quality control. As an indirect consequence of the high technological dependence on PSLs, legal departments can rely on the most suitable tool for the job and reduce the burden of software deployment and maintenance (a task that some legal departments and law firms may not or will not want to handle the most suitable). If you look at industries as they mature, you usually see small businesses coming in, and as the industry matures, it takes additional investment to be competitive. These companies are being bought out and there is hope of buying customer lists and market share, and if you get market share without compromising the price, that`s good for shareholders. This industry is no different from other industries as it evolves from segmented industries to an industry with some eight hundred pounds of guerrilla warfare [sic]. While COVID-19 has prompted law firms to make greater use of technology and find new ways to reduce costs, further growth in the ALSP market is expected. Savings have been achieved not only through lower rates (and other types of rates) than other legal service providers, but also through efficiencies achieved through specialization, technological expertise, and the use of documented and repeatable workflows and quality control measures. Georgetown Law`s Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession is dedicated to promoting interdisciplinary research on the legal profession, characterized by an awareness of the dynamics of modern practice. provide students with a sophisticated understanding of the opportunities and challenges of modern legal professions; and the placement of members of the Bar Association, in particular in organizational decision-making positions, general perspectives on trends and developments in practice.
For more information, see www.law.georgetown.edu/legal-profession/. Chambers Alternative Legal Service Providers Guide rankings provide clients with valuable insights into leading NewLaw service providers across a range of service areas, including flexible staffing, litigation services, eDiscovery, and contact lifecycle management. The top three reasons why U.S. law firms are turning to ALSPs are electronic investigations, legal research, and litigation/investigation assistance, according to the report. However, the report found that law firms are also increasingly turning to ALSPs for advice on legal technology, with 30% of U.S. firms saying they have done so. Independent ALSPs continue to account for by far the largest market share, and their compound annual growth rate was 15% from 2017 to 2019. ALSP services provided by the four major accounting firms had an average growth rate of 8 percent per year over the same period, according to the report. “We found a surprising amount of collaboration between law firms and ALSPs,” said James W. Jones, Senior Fellow at the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center. “ALSPs themselves report less tension and mistrust in their dealings with law firms. This is encouraging and augurs well for the expansion of cooperation in a growing number of services.
One of the fastest growing services where law firms hire ALSPs is legal technology consulting.