Collaboration in the Legal Industry: Everything you Need to Know

Organizations that interact internally, with others in the supply chain, and, most importantly, with clients are significantly more likely to thrive.

FREMONT, CA: Collaboration is a thread in the business fabric of the digital age. Collaboration is vital for competitiveness in a global marketplace setting where barriers separating geographies and industries are melting like glaciers and technological breakthroughs are enabling new delivery models to transcend conventional divides. Organizations that interact internally, with others in the supply chain, and, most importantly, with clients are significantly more likely to thrive. This explains why so many competitive businesses are breaking down enterprise silos as well as replacing them with more fluid, integrated workforces; collaborating with others in the supply chain, including competitors; and using data to better understand, anticipate, service, and monitor customer needs, expectations, and satisfaction. The most successful firms in the digital economy develop a symbiotic relationship with their customers, which is aided by technology, access, and customer service.

Law Is Not Anymore Immune to Broader Forces Driving Global Change

The combination of the global financial crisis, technology, and globalism has affected the insularity of law, if not its ethos, over the last decade. These tremendous global macroeconomic pressures have resulted in, among other things, legal disaggregation, segmentation, and separation of legal practice from the business of delivering legal services. Moreover, technology has permitted the development of new legal delivery models whose DNA is more akin to commerce than law.

Some common features among leading new-model legal providers include: a flatter, corporate organizational structure; tech-enabled platforms; an economic model aligned with client value; focus on net promoter score (client satisfaction); institutional capital; agile, multi-generational, multidisciplinary, data-driven internal and client-facing operations; proactive risk identification/mitigation; and a customer-centric focus. These service providers are frequently referred to as "legal tech" firms. While they are technologically enabled, technology is merely one component of a larger, more comprehensive process of customer-centric reorganization that produces company value and responds to organizational concerns.