A top initiative of legal departments for 2019 is to manage outside counsel spend, according to a recent survey by alternative legal service provider Tower Legal Solutions, which is driving the use of alternative legal services.

Nearly 60% of the 73 respondents, which included legal operations professionals, attorneys and support staff of in-house legal departments, indicated that managing outside counsel spend was a top priority for 2019. Also, 60% of the respondents overwhelmingly said they used alternative legal services in 2018.

“Over the last couple of years we've seen corporations implementing legal operations departments and it's to manage outside spend and also to bring in new operating procedures, implementing best practices and technology,” said Leslie Firtell, CEO and founder of Tower Legal Solutions.

Firtell also said the reasons alternative legal service providers are being used differ now from when she began working in alternative legal services 22 years ago. She explained when she started, legal departments were looking for extra workers because of staff shortages. Now alternative legal services are being used as a way to save money.

“Now people are putting on the brakes when it comes to engaging outside counsel for overflow work that can clearly be done in-house and freeing in-house attorneys up to do the more sophisticated work,” Firtell said.

Specifically when it comes to the use of alternative legal services, Firtell said she has seen an increase in the use of contract attorneys.

“There is no question in my mind why these alternative services have increased,” Firtell said.

Years ago, Firtell said she helped a general counsel of an entertainment company find a contract attorney to go over contracts. The attorney, who had been a seven-year associate at an international law firm, had left her job to start her own company but was still available to do some work. Firtell said the work was done for $110 an hour. If the general counsel had gone to a firm for the work, it would have paid $700 an hour.

“There has been a huge increase of contract attorneys in the market that are interested and available to do this type of work,” Firtell said.

Contracting attorneys appears to be how a majority of companies are using alternative legal services, with nearly 45% of the respondents indicating this type of use.

“It's very hard to say that it's not a winning proposition for everyone because the corporation is saving money and your own employees are not being swamped with work,” Firtell said.