P2P

66 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | S U M M E R 2 0 2 2 innovative, and collaborative in creating solutions for the clients' problems. Clients are now embracing their roles as consumers of legal services. They know they have more options, and they have a better understanding of when they should rely on law firms or turn to alternative providers for higher volume or specialized services. They are able to determine whether, when, from what model, and at what level of expense they will use lawyers. For example, organizations with large legal budgets are no longer satisfied with only law firms providing all services. They will happily work with several preferred providers—typically a mix of law firms and legal services providers. They expect their providers to be communicative, responsive, and quick to anticipate the client's needs. They expect all providers to understand their needs and tailor solutions to them. In other words, today's clients seek truly collaborative relationships. Transparency and effective communication are critical to collaboration. An attorney may spend weeks researching, writing, and fine-tuning a motion or pleading, but the client only sees the final product and the final invoice. Similarly, a document review attorney may spend weeks or months on a complex case, but the client only sees the completed review set and the final invoice. In both scenarios, the client may see hundreds of hours billed to "Review," but they don't necessarily know how this added value to their matter or project. Without frequent, clear, and concise communication, the client has no insight into the pace and effectiveness of work being done on that case. Organizations that prioritize communication recognize the importance of the client's engagement. They also understand that embracing collaboration and communicating regularly gives them an opportunity to correct course, if necessary, and prevent avoidable problems or questions at a later stage. However, fostering a collaborative environment can be difficult to reverse-engineer into traditional legal services relationship. True collaboration involves a mutually beneficial relationship where each party works cooperatively and effectively together for a specific outcome and has shared responsibility for results. But this is hard. Even if firms wish to adopt a more relationship-forward approach may not be structured to do so. Most firms are entrenched in generations of behavior patterns and reward systems where everyone operates in silos ways. Other organizations, including some of the larger ALSPs, are not structured to be collaborative because they are servicing debt and can't invest in the necessary infrastructure, or because of the challenges to cultural integration that often accompany rapid growth. In contrast, many smaller law firms and more innovative ALSPs do not face these structural limitations and can keep their focus on giving clients a new and better legal experience. Boutique law firms may draw upon a collection of trusted senior legal and technology experts to solve client problems using a technology-enabled solutions approach. An ALSP may deploy machine learning to provide an early and more accurate estimate of the likely cost and pace of work in a particular matter, leveraging automation to minimize time spent on low-value tasks, or artificial intelligence to rapidly extract relevant results from huge volumes of data. Regardless of type of service provider, instilling a culture of genuine collaboration takes top-down effort and must pervade every area of an organization if it is to make a difference. To affect the kind of positive change that is now in demand across the industry, legal services providers must define, communicate, practice, measure, and reward meaningful collaboration across every area of their organization. F R O M T H E T E C H S O L U T I O N S C C T

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