The Legalette

Alternative Legal Service Providers – the New Player Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) are legal service businesses that take on legal processes from law firms and organizations, perform them at a lower cost, and often with increased efficiency, flexibility, and speed[1][2]. More and more companies are routinely transferring their legal services to ALSPs, while law firms are outsourcing expensive and time-consuming projects to them. According to a recent survey by Thomson Reuters[3], ~51% of law firms and 60% of corporate legal departments use ALSP services. While cost-effectiveness is one of the reasons ALSPs are gaining popularity, another is that these businesses often have expertise that is not available in-house in many law practices. ALSPs usually specialize in high-demand legal services such as Document Review, Discovery, Contract Lifecycle Management, Compliance, Litigation, IP management etc. (refer Chart 1).

Chart 1: Law firm and Corporate use of ALSPs. Source: Thom…

What lies ahead for Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)? Fourteen law and technology experts shared their thoughts on the next decade of CLM[1] and indicated that 2019 will be a big year for contracting:

Standardized programs will bring harmony to contract management.Lauryn K. Haake (HBR Consulting) says that “contracting in the future will be driven from a standardized program”. She believes that the processes involved in CLM need to be aggregated into harmonious, manageable programs. These programs will enable companies to organize request processes & engagement, contract drafting, clause selection protocol, risk & obligation management, approval & signature policies, compliance, information governance, and records retention.
Linda Chuan (Thomson Reuters) also echoed the power of standardization and playbooks which she says “will permit sourcing professionals to negotiate directly based on a series of approved terms.”
Technology, technology, and more technology. Dennis Gar…