Gaining scalability and flexibility

Small law firms are under intense competition from full-service firms looking to muscle into specialist, but lucrative areas, such as intellectual property (IP). Indeed, some experts predict that many small- and medium-sized firms will be forced to merge with large general practice firms or enter into alliances with other specialist boutiques in order to stay competitive. 

However, as corporate legal departments face increasing pressure to cut costs, the market is beginning to open to smaller, more regionalised law firms, particularly those that are able to fulfil their clients' administrative needs without the level of charges that are traditionally levied by the larger firms.

Smaller firms may be able to tailor their services and prices to meet their corporate clients' needs, but they are unlikely to have the resources or flexibility to scale up to meet demands for higher-volume work. This can lead many companies to choose larger firms, as they fear that work may not be completed on time, thereby adding to their business risk.

Case study: Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner

Outsourcing legal support services can help law firms to minimise expenses and overheads, but the flexibility and scalability that the services provide also help lower the cost of customer acquisition, as they allow such firms to acquire new clients faster and more economically, as Steven Lundberg, Founding Shareholder of SLW explains.

Larger law firms will typically employ someone full-time to fulfil administrative roles such as docketing, IP Recordals or paralegal support, as well as associated functions to support IT programmes or systems. But smaller firms do not generally have the resources or workload in place to justify such full-time positions. 

Fortunately they don't need to. Legal support services provide law firms with easy and cost-effective access to additional staff, resources or expertise without the overhead of managing the work in-house. That means that next time you have a sudden rush on IP Recordals work or a client needs instant turnaround on a series of patent illustrations or trademark searches, you won't need to turn the work away.

CPA Global provides a growing range of legal support services to help smaller and larger law firms prosper in the competitive legal marketplace. 

From highly-administrative IP functions, such as docketing, IP Recordals work or paralegal support, to more specialist requirements like trademark searches or patent illustration, our UK, US and India-based teams can take the pressure off your in-house staff, leaving you to concentrate on more valuable activities while providing your clients with timely, high-quality work at a cost-effective price.

But, it's not just in the area of IP that we are able to add value. We also provide other leading legal outsourcing services, such as contract management, document drafting and review, legal research, deposition summaries and litigation support. That's why we ranked number 1 in the Black Book of Outsourcing for 'Scalability, adaptability and flexible pricing' in 2009.