About Alternative Legal Service Providers

The changing face of today’s legal market has been marked by the increasing proliferation of alternative legal services providers, with clients now able to choose between a broad spectrum of businesses offering their services for tasks traditionally handled by law firms. Utilising service centres in low-cost jurisdictions and in-house technological tools, these providers are often able to present a more efficient and cost-effective option without sacrificing quality – valuable traits in an era of increasing legal fees and decreasing law department budgets.

Chambers ALSP 2021 is the second edition of our guide to the alternative legal services market and provides a market leading alternative legal service provides list in each of our rankings. In this release we have added further detail and analysis to our ranking tables in Flexible Legal Staffing, Contract Lifecycle Management, Litigation Services and Law Firm LPOs. We have also introduced two spotlight tables to capture two of the fastest-developing emerging markets, in Spain and in the Asia-Pacific region.

The report is the product of interviews with the service providers themselves, their clients and third-party market insiders, and the analysis of qualitative feedback concerning technical ability, client service and value for money. Designed to offer online legal service providers the opportunity to connect with buyers of legal services, we have added two new tables to capture two of the fastest-growing emerging markets: in Spain and in the Asia-Pacific Region.

Our rankings this year have grown by 46%, reflecting the rapid development of this sector worldwide.

We have added two new tables to capture two of the fastest-growing emerging markets: in Spain and in the Asia-Pacific Region.

Flexible legal staffing is one of the original pioneering subsets of the alternative legal services sector. Founding figures Axiom and Lawyers on Demand have been joined over the years by increasing numbers of new entrants to the market, each adding to the diversity of choice facing clients.

Considered the mainstay of legal work outsourced to third-party service providers, contract lifecycle management (CLM) platforms allow in-house legal departments to unlock value by shifting commoditised but often time-consuming and volume-intensive tasks to LPO providers and law companies.

Alongside eDiscovery*, the litigation services offered by alternative legal services providers encompass a broad scope of technology-based processes designed to automate the volume- and time-intensive tasks associated with commercial litigation and investigations.

*More details on eDiscovery technology providers can be found for USA-based companies and for UK-based companies.

Recent years have seen a throng of new arrivals into the alternative legal services market, dominated by captive platforms launched by law firms. A number of leading firms in the UK and USA have launched their own alternative services to clients, ranging from flexible staffing and managed legal services through to more novel models aggregating third-party services into composite solutions for clients.

As a ranked firm you are invited to take an enhanced profile which is accessed directly from the ranking table. This will allow you to highlight all your capabilities, contact information, provide you with Ranked in Chambers logos and give you platform to host your articles, case/work highlights and press releases.

We are also offering the opportunity for a select number of ranked firms to provide sponsored overviews relating to the ranking tables they are ranked within.

Please contact Jeremy Stephenson to learn more.

Diversity and Inclusion Highlights for Chambers ALSP 2021
Read about the actions in place to increase diversity and inclusion in the sector.