LawSourcing Blog

A recent article in the Chicago Daily Herald discusses the continuing trend of U.S. firms outsourcing legal services. The author notes that this trend is continuing to grow, with law firms and inhouse lawyers using legal outsourcing companies for conducting legal research, performing document reviews, writing due diligence reports of mergers and acquisitions, performing administrative work, and drafting legal documents. Caren Mansfield, President of the Illinois Paralegal Association, recognizes that the outsourcing of legal services is “here to stay”; however, she would like to see U.S. lawyers outsource this type of work to U.S. resources. Regardless, she sees a “bright and promising future for those associated with legal process outsourcing services.”

Legal Research Growing Globally [Daily Herald]

An article from delawareonline discusses DuPont’s continued use of offshore resources to perform legal services. According to the experts, most U.S. companies will rely on their U.S. lawyers for the specialized skills and high-level legal writing and appearance in court. DuPont, however, is “freeing up some of its lawyers from tedious document review . . . so that those lawyers can pursue other legal cases that it may have had to settle or ignore because they simply didn’t have time or would have been too expensive.” Tom Sager, DuPont’s Assistant General Counsel, probably caused a number of U.S. lawyers to sit up and take notice with his statement that “Companies like DuPont can’t be satisfied with using the providers down the street.”

U.S. Losing Legal Work to Overseas Firms [delawareonline]

More and more lawyers are jumping into the blogosphere; however, many are finding that it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain a blog. Edward Poll, the author of the LawBiz Blog, recently wrote an article describing 10 ways a blog boosts a law firm’s image. Number 8 mentioned that lawyers should consider outsourcing aspects of their blog.

8. Delegate.

Worried that you’ll spend too much time blogging? Consider hiring someone to manage the technical aspects of your blog, such as uploading posts and graphics, tracking replies to posts, working on search engine optimization. The expense may be far less than the time spent updating and managing — no matter how easy with TypePad or other tools — that take you away from other marketing activities or even from your practice.

Taken one step further, lawyers can outsource the entire function of their blog — they can have someone design the look and feel of the blog, have someone else write the content that is posted to the blog (with the lawyer reviewing the content prior to posting), and have someone else manage the technical aspects of the blog. The problem used to be finding the right people to handle these tasks; however, with more and more websites on the internet providing easy access to these resources, this scenario is likely to become commonplace.

You can read more about Edward Poll’s writings at the LawBiz Blog

Ten Ways Blogs Boost a Law Firm’s Image [Law.com]

Law.com reports that online legal matching, a business model that uses automated technologies that match specific needs of a person seeking a lawyer to lawyers whose practices focus on those areas, is quickly picking up momentum. Several companies, including Legal Match, have automated software that matches the needs of a client with listed attorneys who fit the criteria that the client has specified.

As noted by Law.com, most State bar associations are issuing opinions that, when certain specific guidlines are followed, online legal matching services pose no risk to ethical standards. Further, the FTC has reported that online legal matching violates no ethical boundaries. The Professional Ethics Committe of the State Bar of Texas has joined in and issued an opinion that supports allowing Texas lawyers to participate in for-profit Internet sites that help match lawyers with people seeking legal services.

What online legal matching doesn’t do, however, is create complete transparency between the consumer and the potential lawyer. Indeed, the consumer is left to trust that the matching service’s software will identify the best lawyer for that consumer based on the idenitifed criteria, taking some control away from the consumer in making that decision. Online legal matching certainly is a step in the right direction in empowering the consumer — but it’s probably just the beginning of a movement that completely changes the traditional model of how consumers hire lawyers (and how lawyers attract new clients).

The Future of Client Acquisition is Upon Us [Law.com]

If you are interested in previewing the new LawSourcing website as part of an exclusive group of Beta testers, please send an email expressing your interest to beta@lawsourcing.com. Beta testers get early access to the site and a free 12-month upgrade on the service.

Questions? Email us at beta@lawsourcing.com.

David Meister, a prominant author of several books about professional service providers, recently posted a blog entry that discussed how to market yourself when only doing “one-off” projects (i.e., where you are retained for only one project, not for multiple projects in an ongoing relationship). A reader inquired about whether there are marketing activities that would be useful when looking for one-off projects rather than repeat business clients.

Among a number of suggestions, Maister states that it’s very important factor to have a webiste with “lots of content” so that people who don’t know you can see what you have to offer. Interestingly, in a later comment to Maister’s blog post, Maister then suggests to look at the situation from the perspective of the buyer of the services. He explains that in a one-off transaction there’s higher risk (because you don’t get a second chance), you have to trust a stranger who you’re hiring, and you really need the referrals of others to reduce nervousness and insecurity.

So, when a buyer is hiring a service provider for a one-off project, that buyer needs to know that the service provider is trustworthy and will stand behind their work. eBay recognized this in its infancy and created a community feedback mechanism to allow members to police themselves. By rating each other, members have the incentive to provide exactly what they are offering so they can build their credibility and become trustworthy members of the community. For the most part, however, eBay involves the sale of products, not services.

Building this credibility on the services side historically has occurred in the “offline” world (e.g., through word of mouth, referrals, etc.). However, over the past few years, online eBay-like communities for the buying and selling of services, as opposed to products, have been created. Through these online communities, buyers of services are able to quickly and efficiently hire service providers for one-off projects. Perhaps these online communities, where buyers can immediately look at a service provider’s bio, work history, and feedback from other buyers, will become the best way to market youself for one-off projects.

Marketing in a One-Off Industry [www.davidmaister.com]

Freelance lawyers work on a project basis, typically at a much lower rate than lawyers at “traditional” law firms. Freelance lawyers typically set their own schedule and pick and choose the projects they work on. They might do project work for in-house counsel, or they might be hired by a lawyer to handle specific projects (e.g., only specific aspects of a certain case or transaction). It’s not uncommon for a freelance lawyer to spend part of his or her time working on legal projects, and the other part pursuing other business interests.

Geoffrey Gussis, who runs the InHouse Blog - News for Inhouse Counsel, republished an article by James Hartt about freelance lawyers and whether they are a valuable alternative for in-house counsel. The argument against freelancers, says Hartt, is that in-house lawyers have a fear that a freelancer’s work won’t be of the same quality as that found at a traditional law firm. However, many freelancers are lawyers who were trained in those very same law firms, but who are looking for more flexibility and freedom with their schedule. Hartt argues that companies could save a lot of money on “everyday issues and tasks” if they would set aside their fears and work with freelancers whom they feel comfortable with. Indeed, both in-house counsel and smaller law firms could become more efficient if they could find reasonably-priced, qualified freelancers to handle one-off legal projects.

Freelance Attorneys: A Valuable Alternative For In-House Counsel . . . Sometimes [www.inhouseblog.com]

Here’s an interesting article that discusses the growing popularity of legal matching sites:

Fierce Competition for Online Legal Matching [TransWorldNews.com]

The Texas Lawyer recently ran a story discussing how executives are looking at outsourcing and offshoring as a way to cut legal fees. The article says that with associate salaries on the rise, and billing rates likely to follow, the likelihood of outsourcing and offshoring of legal services is “very real and will only become more so over the coming years.”

Interestingly, the article explained that this outsourcing trend does not include just large corporations “but also small firms looking to add muscle to their legal staff.” Whereas highly complex work isn’t likely to be outsourced anytime soon, “the more mundane matters such as legal research, paralegal work and legal due diligence are more the target of offshore legal service providers.” It will be interesting to see whether both smaller and larger firms can reduce costs by outsourcing these more mundane tasks here in the U.S. rather than having to send it offshore.

In any event, it’s clear that the delivery of legal services will be changing over the next few years. With salaries and billing rates on the rise, lawyers will have to discover new ways to deliver quality legal services for fees that clients are willing to pay for. Are outsourcing and offshoring the answer? Time will tell — but they certainly appear to be one of the pieces to the puzzle.

Several times a year people will ask me to recommend an attorney for a case. I keep a list of attorneys I’ve worked with and trust, and when asked I will recommend one or two names off that list. Typically I don’t hear back about the recommendation, but sometimes I’ll receive a note back from the person who asked for the recommendation saying something like “The attorney you recommended was great. Thanks very much.”

I like those notes. They let me know that I’m trusted to give good recommendations and that I can trust the attorneys I’m recommending.

That’s why I was shocked last night to receive the following email about a recommendation I made a few weeks ago:

[Name of attorney I referred] has been really disappointing. Take him off your recommendation list.

Ouch! Not only did this note tell me that the attorney I recommended was doing a poor job, it told me that my recommendation list has a problem. A bad apple. I wondered how many other people were dissatisfied after I had referred them to this attorney, but had not bothered to tell me about it. This attorney was losing the trust of his client and causing me to lose trust as a referral source. Like it or not, his sub-par work was reflecting poorly on both of us.

This experience made me realize three things:

• I need to take a more active role with my recommendations. Instead of waiting for people to give me feedback on their experiences, I need to solicit feedback. That way I can weed out any potential problem attorneys before I recommend them again.
• If someone recommends me, it is important — no, it’s absolutely essential — to make a good first impression. People can build long term reputations with a first project. If the first project exceeds the client’s expectations, they will be more likely to forgive a minor slip on the fourth or fifth project. It typically doesn’t work the other way though — if an attorney slips on the first project, it’s unlikely they will get another project to redeem themselves. In the services industry, first projects mean everything.
• Years ago Vidal Sassoon used the tagline “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good; we take pride in you.” This holds true for anyone recommending the services of another. If the services are performed poorly, the person making the recommendation looks bad. If a service provider wants to get more recommendations, they must make sure the people recommending them can “take pride in them.”

Careers, reputations, brands and businesses have been built on recommendations. Marketers will tell you that the ideal marketing strategy is built around recommendations and referrals. But you have to earn those recommendations. You have to build pride. And you have to make sure no one ever says “Take him off your recommendation list.”