Editor's Note: This story is adapted from ALM's Mid-Market Report. For more business of law coverage exclusively geared toward midsize firms, sign up for a free trial subscription to ALM's weekly newsletter, The Mid-Market Report.

Early in the last economic downturn, savvy midsize firm leaders began to sense that their moment was coming, as buzz grew that Big Law's ever-ascending rates were becoming untenable for increasingly cost-conscious clients.

But only in the past few years have chief legal officers begun to indicate a real willingness to move work from large firms to small and midsize shops. In a recent study by legal consultancy Altman Weil, 31 percent of CLOs surveyed said they'd moved outside work to firms with lower billing rates and were happy with the decision.