Technology Applications

Outsourced legal services is not the only innovation in the legal profession helping legal firms and corporate councils manage the cost of legal services. A recent article featured in the Wall Street Journal notes that, technology and software platforms are being adopted at increasing rates to help lower costs, as well.

As noted in the foreword of the book Implementing a Successful Legal Outsourcing Engagement, Bruce MacEwen writes in regard to the adoption outsourced legal services, “I may disappoint you to report that what I believe is far more parochial: the adoption of outsourcing will be firm by firm, activity by activity, year by year. Like much of the march of progress, change will be less drastic in the short run than many imagine, and more revolutionary in the long run than most can foresee.”

The same is true of the adoption of innovative technology applications, as noted in the article. Innovative outsourcing solutions will happen in concert with technology developments. Often changes begin slowly at first, but expand into a number of exciting possibilities as they mature.

Links between these innovative technology platforms and outsourcing include improved monitoring and collaboration with remotely based outside vendors. With increasing transparency, general counsel will have greater capacity to monitor the productivity of their outside counsel and thus, their outside legal spend.