As data-informed cost reduction becomes more prevalent across industries, many insurance defense lawyers say the incentives that have compelled them toward greater use of alternative fee arrangements and low-cost staffing models over the last 10 years are harbingers of things to come for other areas of the law.

“The insurance industry has become far more sophisticated and dependent on analytics, and so they are constantly evaluating the key performance indicators [KPIs] of their panel counsel and they’re comparing them to one another,” said G. Mark Thompson, CEO of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, a civil defense firm based in Philadelphia.