Friday was my last day working for Integreon. I will continue blogging here while I decide on my next job. 

In September 2007, just after joining Integreon, I wrote My Move from Consulting to Legal Outsourcing, to disclose my day job so you could assess any potential bias. When I “change hats”, I inform so you know my perspective.

With four years of experience in legal outsourcing, I write not just about legal technology, e-discovery, and knowledge management. Now, in addition to outsourcing, I also write about the business of law and “alternative delivery” models for legal services, which includes many options:

  • Law firms with low cost onshore or offshore business and legal support centers.
  • Companies such as Axiom and the Practical Law Company, which represent, respectively, innovative approaches to staffing and to knowledge sharing and re-use.
  • Legal process outsourcers (LPO).
  • New-model law firms such as Clearspire or Valorem Law.
  • Web-based providers such as LegalZoom.
  • Options just now emerging as UK legal reform and alternative business structures (ABS) take effect.

Post the 2008 economic crash, the corporate legal market has a new mantra: cost-effective and price-predictable legal services for clients; maintain profitability for law firms. Packaging varies but a few key ingredients both support and drive these goals:

  • Process improvement
  • Centralizing and standardizing high volume work with appropriate staff in cost-effective locations.
  • Technology to automate and, more importantly informate (see In the Age of the Smart Machine by Shoshana Zuboff), the law practice and business.
  • Evidence-based decision-making, driven by analyzing BigData.

My posts do always discuss legal tech but it is implicit in most topics.

I aim to find a full-time position where I can continue developing solutions consistent with the new mantra: deliver cost-effective legal services with better processes, the right resources in the right places, and smart technology, all driven by sound analysis. I may consult in the interim.

I hope you continue to find my posts informative, provocative, and, if opinionated, fair nonetheless. You can also follow me on Twitter @ronfriedmann, where my Tweets are exclusively professional, for example, referencing and commenting on interesting articles and blog posts.