A Flexible Solution for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
Many businesses face excessive legal expenses, especially at pivotal or challenging financial times. Whether these legal services involve routine business organization matters, legal compliance, or a potential liability, finding effective ways to reduce legal fees without compromising the quality of representation can be incredibly challenging.
Keeping attorneys on retainer or hiring in-house counsel may not be the best financial decision for small and medium-sized companies. With increasing legal complexity and lawyer specialization, companies are often required to hire several different lawyers for their legal needs. Over the past twenty years, alternatives to traditional law firms have emerged to reduce legal expenses or offer niche legal solutions. “On-demand lawyers”, “fractional in-house counsel”, and “freelance lawyers” are examples of “alternative legal service providers” (ALSPs) that have emerged to reduce legal fees for businesses searching for more cost-effective legal options.
The public’s adoption of these less costly legal alternatives has been slow. Many businesses continue to hire traditional law firms, perhaps without realizing these models can substantially reduce legal fees without reducing the quality of most legal services.
42% of lawyers surveyed outsource legal work to ALSPs
Ironically, traditional law firms have broadly accepted ALSPs as part of their business model. Bloomberg Law reports that 42% of lawyers surveyed outsource as much as 48% of their legal work to ALSPs while also performing an average of 29% of the work kept in-house under an alternative fee arrangement. Traditional law firm billing rates have nevertheless increased year after year more than 9% while law firm revenues increased by 12.5% according to the ABA Journal. Consider using alternatives to traditional law firms like InPerSuit and other alternative legal service providers for improved legal service while significantly reducing legal expenses.
How ALSPs Reduce Legal Fees and Improve Legal Representation
ALSPs are innovative business models that combine legal professionals, technology, and streamlined processes to deliver legal services more efficiently. The American Bar Association recognizes Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) for their ability to offer lower legal costs than typical of traditional law firms. ALSPs first emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, providing law firms with temporary project-based legal professionals or technology solutions for litigation or document support. ALSPs allow smaller and medium-sized businesses a more cost-effective way to manage their legal needs, from legal document creation to project-based on-demand or freelance legal professionals. A recent study by Georgetown Law reveals that large law firms and corporate law departments are increasing their reliance on ALSPs.
The Advantages of Traditional Law Firms Over ALSPs
Large law firms offer the potential advantages of specialized expertise, broad collective experience, and scalable resources. Smaller boutique law firms often offer the same specialized expertise in their legal area, equal experience, and typically pool resources with co-counsel. The advantages of hiring boutique law firms can meet or exceed the advantages of hiring larger law firms.
Despite these advantages, hiring traditional law firms can present two major disadvantages for small and medium-sized businesses. First, these law firms have a reputation for higher hourly rates and overall client billing. Higher legal expenses can result in a substantial price-value gap, potentially causing clients to abandon legitimate disputes after spending tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars in legal expenses. The second disadvantage is the heightened risk of loss or bad result associated with higher caseloads or overhead and pressures to produce more revenue for the firm. Higher caseloads or extraneous financial pressures can significantly impact the quality of legal service, directly affecting the case and case value. Delays, limited availability, an unexpected increase in legal costs, valuation errors, and conflicts with your attorney, and client neglect are signs of higher caseloads, financial pressures, and poor legal representation.
Few ALSPs provide the advantages of a traditional law firm. Most ALSPs only offer niche legal solutions for a limited legal need, such as the creation of legal forms or limited scope legal services. ALSPs are designed for a specific purpose or task and most are not suitable for more complex legal work. Very few ALSPs provide the legal planning, continuity, insight, or strategic management required for effective legal representation overall. The lack of consistent legal insight, competency, and continuity in ALSPs without the oversight of an attorney potentially increases the risks of costly litigation, liability, and regulatory noncompliance.
How InPerSuit Engages the Advantages of Traditional Law Firms
InPerSuit resolves the limitations of ALSPs by bridging the advantages of a traditional law firm in a managed delivery approach. On-demand lawyers, fractional in-house counsel, freelance lawyers, ALSPs and traditional law firms are all resources in today’s legal ecosystem. Unlike ALSPs, InPerSuit prioritizes delivery of the best legal resources directly to the client as its mission. InPerSuit recruits lawyers from:
- Traditional law firms
- Boutique law firms
- Lawyers who offer “on-demand” legal services
- Fractional legal services
- Freelance legal services
To deliver the highest quality legal service, experienced legal professionals in our company start by recruiting and approving vetted and verified lawyers. Our proprietary platform is designed to quickly deliver lawyers matching your legal needs allowing easier evaluation, comparison, and an informed consultation with each lawyer of interest. Customer support is provided with real legal professionals trained to connect consumers with lawyers matching their legal needs. Our priority is to serve the consumer first with the most innovative marketplace platform, customer support, and available legal representation. Our legal support continues during the course of your legal matter, unlike ALSPs and other legal marketplaces.
Using the Managed Delivery Model to Reduce Legal Expenses
Key features of managed delivery include reduced operational overhead, dedicated customer support, greater focus on outcomes, and improved delivery of core services. Hallmarks of effective managed delivery include proper planning, budgeting, and reporting of the services or deliverables. When executed properly, these practices greatly improve the quality of services while substantially reducing expenses. By way of example, larger corporations and insurance companies essentially manage delivery of their legal services through in-house counsel and claims managers or adjusters to improve case outcomes and reduce litigation budgets.
InPerSuit offers the benefits of managed delivery for legal services. Each lawyer approved on our platform must agree to provide their best service and best price to InPerSuit customers. In other words, using InPerSuit gives legal consumers the same price-value leverage that larger companies receive when hiring traditional law firms. Our platform also offers the planning, budgeting, and reporting service typical of managed delivery to improve case outcomes and reduce legal fees.
InPerSuit can provide:
- Managed delivery of legal services: This includes planning, budgeting, and reporting services for legal matters, which improves quality and efficiency.
- Price-value leverage: InPerSuit ensures that each approved lawyer agrees to provide their best service and price to our customers, giving legal consumers similar leverage to larger companies when hiring traditional law firms.
- Vetted and verified attorneys: We recruit and approve only attorneys vetted for their specific legal expertise, aiming for high-quality legal service.
- Proprietary platform: This platform allows users to easily evaluate, compare, and consult with lawyers matching their legal needs.
- Customer support from real legal professionals: These professionals are trained to connect users with their best legal options.
- Continuous legal support: InPerSuit’s support continues throughout the legal matter.
- Reduced operational overhead: This is a key feature of our managed delivery approach.
- Dedicated customer support and greater focus on outcomes: These are also hallmarks of our legal marketplace.
To be clear, InPerSuit is a legal marketplace with patent-pending technology and the advantages of modern ALSPs. InPerSuit’s skilled legal professionals provide legal support with the benefits of managed delivery for increased efficiency, improved legal service, and reduced costs. Our value-added support delivers the quality of traditional law firms while significantly reducing legal expenses for the consumer without the limitations of ALSPs.
Ready to experience a smarter alternative to traditional law firms or ALSPs?
No Upfront Costs with InPerSuit! Find Your Legal Options Today at https://www.inpersuit.com/ or Call 877 566-9124!