Opportunities for a Broader Service Offering
Law firms delivering managed services usually sit in the “engine room” of the legal function, dealing with the volume of day-to-day contracts that drive the productivity of the business.
With this position comes a unique insight with which law firms can identify opportunities to add further value and win further work. Many in-house counsel underestimate the value outside counsel place on becoming more of an integral part of the in-house team. Law firm lawyers like to solve real problems for their clients; and they like helping in-house counsel succeed. This includes helping in-house lawyers move up the value chain within their own organizations. Managed legal service lawyers find this in itself to be enormously satisfying and believe it will help their relationship with these clients and in-house lawyers for years to come.Any successful managed service offering should set continuous improvement (both legal and non-legal) as one of its goals. In this regard, law firms are given a platform not only to suggest improvements but also to deliver them. Law firms can and should use this opportunity to widen their service offering to new categories of work (and revenue) beyond traditionally “legal” work. Examples of such new categories of work are: process mapping; legal project management; risk management; horizon scanning; document automation and artificial intelligence. All of these services are complementary to the core managed service and can drive further growth for both the law firm and the client.
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