With overhead and payroll costs a growing concern for Big Law and their clients, a new report suggests both parties may increasingly look to alternative legal service providers to provide value, meet demand and plug into new technology.

According to the Alternative Legal Services Providers 2023 report, published by Thomson Reuters Institute on Tuesday, U.S. law firms of all sizes as well as corporations have “dramatically accelerated” their use of outside vendors to handle responsibilities such as e-discovery, document review and coding, and other tasks. The analysts estimated the size of the market was $20.6 billion at the end of fiscal year 2021, an increase of 45% from the last report two years ago.