Today’s law firms face unprecedented challenges in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving marketplace. Corporate clients, under intense pressure to cut costs and increase efficiency within their own organizations, are no longer willing to simply pay an hourly rate for services rendered in good faith. They are unapologetic in demanding increased accountability and demonstrable value from the legal teams who represent them. In particular, they are seeking more predictable litigation schedules and budgets and, understandably, they expect legal outcomes that reflect the costs of the services they are paying for. Further, as users of progressive technologies themselves, corporate clients expect that their law firm will also embrace and be well-versed in technology to offer more effective representation and lower costs.
Meanwhile, law firms are struggling to get rapidly increasing costs under control in a global information economy that has ushered in exploding data volumes, diverse data formats, dispersed legal teams, and large-scale, complex litigation which frequently crosses geographical and jurisdictional borders. In an attempt to get a better handle on runaway costs and improve the accuracy of budget projections, many law firms look to sophisticated technological tools as an opportunity to defensibly manage and cull data and streamline workflows in a more efficient, less labor-intensive way.
