Disruptive Legal Service Providers

Lion Report: Disruptive Legal Service Providers (Week of Aug 20th 2012)

Good evening exclusive subscribers,
Disruption is good!
Repeat with me:
Disruption is good.
I will celebrate change.
Innovation is a necessity.
I know. I know. You are all shaking your heads thinking
I am smoking something, but we are watching history being
made as innovators and entrepreneurs are breaking the legal mold.
I propose that the legal industry is the sleeping giant of innovation. Still.
Law firm partners (& GCs) have enjoyed the same ‘ol same ‘ol for the past 100+ years.
Technology and un happy service providers and recipients are siliently causing a
shift in the giant walrus of a market. Law firm partners are excelerating the grave
of their happy home by ignoring the signs of its arrival.
Non traditional legal services are emerging and taking work from the AML 200.
A couple of these companies doing so are Axiom, Virtual Law Partners & Clearspire.
They are providing legal services at a lower competitive rate or fee to their counter parts;
services such as document review assignments, contract processing, transactional & corporate
or litigation matters. Innovators have discovered inefficiences in the current law service model
and are finding clients interested in a more digestable invoice.
To focus on one company, Axiom has been at this for 12 years yet the recession has
accelerated demand. Their clients are law firm clients and act as the middleman for
hundreds of temp attorneys on various projects. They outsource and insource.
Outsource or also called managed services by assigning teams of lawyers designated for
specific client projects. Insource as temping attorneys in the clients head quarters as
part of the In-House counsel.
Either way they are offering to the client a cost effective method and solution to
what has been an out of control expense.
Let’s talk numbers now. That is what’s impressive and should be considered by law partners.
Axoim could be numbered among the AML 200 firms in revenue and the NLJ350 lawyer size list.
Why?
Because they recorded during 2011 $130 million in revenue with over 900 employees mostly lawyers.
So this would make Axiom’s head count near Holland Knight, McGuireWoods & WilmerHale
and revenue would land them near IceMiller, Curtis Mallet-Prevost, & Williams Mullen.
Oh, may I add that a slice of Axiom’s clients are Kraft Foods Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and
Hess Corp.
Impressive to say the least.
All within 12 years for a company that started out in the temp attorney business.
So repeat with me again.
Disruption is good.
I will celebrate change.
Innovation is a necessity.
In my next Lion Report, I’ll address the intrigue of CEO leadership within law firms.