Enterprise legal services providers (ELSPs) are “redefining the art of the possible in legal delivery, responding to the unmet needs of the largest, most sophisticated corporate legal consumers in ways that even elite firms cannot deliver,” writes Legal Mosaic CEO Mark A. Cohen.
In the second of a three-part series in Forbes, Cohen analyzes the emergent and transformative role that ELSPs play in the global legal marketplace and how they are paradigm-changing compared to the traditional corporate-law firm partnership.
In his first article, Cohen highlights that the escalating demands on corporate law department to “do more with less” while simultaneously embarking on digital transformation–all within flat or declining budgets and high turnover–are needs that even the most elite law firms cannot meet. Unlike their C-suite business unit counterparts, legal departments typically lack access to a range of sophisticated, high-value expertise from elite consulting firms. Rather, they are on their own, dependent on law firms and other transaction-focused service providers.
This void has created an entry point for ELSPs, which have the scale, substantial capital, and the ability to integrate legal, business, and technological expertise. According to Cohen, ELSPs are “law’s new elite.”
In collaboration with law department leaders and their teams, ELSPs are starting with an audit of existing resources (internal and external) and infrastructure, and creating a process for optimization. They are also analyzing in-depth existing operating models, law department metrics, and other operational elements and transforming them.
ELSPs create a vision, according to Cohen, “make it tangible, then execute it with quantifiable, enterprise-impacting results.”
Compared to traditional service providers, ELSPs deliver comprehensive solutions, rather than “spot” services, to completely reconfigure the legal function and drive value in new ways not only for the legal department but also the enterprise as a whole. They bring depth and breadth of domain expertise in contracting, intellectual property, litigation, investigation, and compliance-related data management, and risk management. And, they have a global infrastructure to deploy digital platforms that are fully integrated with the legal business processes it supports.
