Supporting Your Legal Department with the Four Pillars
💡Learn how you can maximize your team’s structure with these four pillars in our whitepaper. Hit the link below to read now or bookmark it for later.
Responding to Current Resourcing Pressures
Legal departments and in-house counsel are facing unprecedented challenges characterized by tight budgets juxtaposed with an increasing demand for high-quality legal services. Balancing cost-efficiency with top-tier work quality has become a paramount concern, prompting the need for an optimal resourcing matrix. This entails evaluating when to utilize internal resources, traditional law firms, outside legal service providers, or explore new models beyond the traditional firm structure. However, despite the escalating workloads, the complexity of legal tasks, and technological advancements, only a small fraction of in-house lawyers perceive traditional law firms as fully effective solutions for their resourcing needs. The surge in law firm rates - reaching a record-high increase of 7.9% - exacerbates the dilemma, leading to a reliance on expensive firms for overflow work rather than complex tasks.
The current resourcing challenges facing legal departments are compounded by factors such as the aftermath of the Great Resignation, where overworked and stressed in-house legal teams are actively seeking new positions, reflecting high job dissatisfaction within the legal sector. Amid economic downturns, escalating work volumes, and emerging legal risks, legal departments are under immense pressure to reduce costs while maintaining service quality amidst hiring freezes and resource constraints. The traditional legal resourcing model, primarily split between in-house teams and external law firms, is proving inadequate during economic turbulence. In-house teams struggle with hiring suitable full-time employees for potentially temporary needs, while external law firms, though crucial for large-scale litigation and complex matters, present challenges of rising costs, limited understanding of client enterprises, and advice that often lacks practicality and client-centric prioritization.
In response to these challenges, forward-thinking general counsels are considering a reboot of their legal departments with a focus on the right resourcing DNA. Axiom's suite of in-house solutions and law firm services offers a transformative approach, shifting everyday legal work into a cost-effective, low-risk gear. Leveraging AI-powered processes, Axiom aims to streamline immediate and long-term legal needs for enterprises and small-to-medium-sized businesses, providing flexible, value-focused support across various practice areas. This innovative approach reflects a shift towards more agile, adaptable resourcing strategies tailored to the evolving needs and constraints of modern legal departments.
Is Your Budget Feeling the Squeeze From Increasing Law Firm Rates?
Explore ways to optimize your legal budget. Discover where and how you can use Axiom to supplement traditional law firms and help your legal team do more for less.
The Four Pillars of the Modern Legal Services Model
In response to the deficiencies of the traditional model and the demands of a recession-stricken economy, GCs need to move away from old ways of assessing and addressing their resources and instead consider a new modern path to success. Today, there’s no need to be forced to do more with less when in-house teams can do more for less.
Here’s what this model looks like:
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Your Essential In-house Team
This is your core team of full-time legal professionals who leverage internal enterprise knowledge, provide appropriate managerial scale, and handle core competency work. They form the backbone of your legal operations, providing the consistency and continuity needed for your business.
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Your Team of Flexible Legal Talent
This is your flexible, on-demand talent that sits between your core team and the external law firms. They are ready to be deployed when specific needs arise. Comprising talent with Big Law-level experience and in-house acumen, these agile lawyers can ramp up at any time to handle anticipated or unforeseen legal challenges. They can help with gap fills and work surges in a full-time, part-time, or hourly capacity. They can offer advice in particular practice areas requiring specific subject matter knowledge at an on-demand availability. Big projects requiring a team of highly skilled lawyers? This bench of talent is ready to launch when needed, accompanied by delivery support, reporting, and quick onboarding.
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The Traditional Law Firm
These are your law firms, engaged for specific use cases such as large-scale litigation, enterprise benchmarking, and exceptional matters. The “bet-the-company” stuff. They’re your heavy artillery, called upon when the situation demands their specific expertise and extensive resources.
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The Modern, Virtual Law Firm
Most legal leaders aren’t even aware there’s now an alternative to the expensive Big Law firms. Unlike the traditional elite firm characterized by high levels of partner compensation, hierarchical pyramid structures, substantial overhead costs, and mandatory billable hours, legal leaders can now turn to a new kind of firm. Virtual firms such as Axiom Advice & Counsel can offer tailored approaches, harnessing the most suitable legal talent with full partner oversight and accountability to address each specific legal issue at a lower rate than GCs can expect from Big Law, yet funded by the law firm budget.
Taking Advantage of the Smart Solution
As in-house legal leaders navigate the financial strains and increasing workloads of 2024, Axiom emerges as a beacon of solution amidst these challenges. Offering an extended portfolio of in-house solutions and law firm services - including an actual law firm - Axiom provides a singular source to cater to diverse legal service needs beyond the offerings of traditional alternative legal service providers. Axiom doesn't merely replace external counsel; rather, it assists in redirecting the intricate legal work vital for organizational operations towards a more sustainable, cost-effective, and low-risk approach, alleviating the financial and operational burdens faced by legal departments.
Learn more about how you can maximize your team’s structure with these four pillars in our whitepaper.
