In-house legal departments have not changed how they use contract attorneys during the new coronavirus pandemic, but there has been a spike in requests for health care law specialists as states and courts open back up.

Sara Bahmani, vice president and director of legal processes at Tower Legal Solutions in New York, explained legal departments for health care companies are under pressure to complete projects as the pandemic winds down.

"We were seeing that [health care] companies are hesitant to do remote document reviews," Bahmani said. "Those companies with sensitive market data are more willing as courts are opening up."

Much of the work that contract attorneys are doing during the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed. She explained the work that health care legal departments are seeking help for includes document review as well as data security and intellectual property work. That kind of work is representative of what many companies in a variety of industries have asked their contract attorneys to do during the pandemic.

David Pierce, chief commercial officer of  San Francisco-based alternative legal service provider Axiom, said he is seeing spikes in demands from Axiom's life sciences clients. He said half of the demand comes from cost containment and the other half is driven by clients' need for flexibility and speed.

"Others are moving work streams away from more traditional outside counsel, to Axiom attorneys with in-house and industry experience, either on a case-by-case basis or more programmatically, as part of [requests for proposals] for whole segments of work," Pierce wrote in an email to Corporate Counsel.

Bahmani noted that many clients are asking for attorneys to augment staff attorney positions in legal departments rather than having a contract attorney assigned to one particular project for a period of time.

"They don't have the go-ahead to hire, but they can get an invoice at the end of the month," Bahmani said.

There has also been an interest, Bahmani noted, in temporary to full-time work for contract attorneys.

David Holme, CEO of Exigent Group, a legal outsourcing company based in Chicago, said he has noticed a spike in work since the pandemic. He said attorneys at Exigent are preparing for litigation that is likely to follow the pandemic as well as helping places like nursing homes and hospitals draft new policies.

"We do have a big medical malpractice side of the business and they are starting to see a significant increase in activity," Holme said.

Although legal departments may be looking for alternative legal service providers to save money during the pandemic, Holme said he does not see Exigent as a competitor with the traditional outside counsel.

"We're not competing with law firms. I don't think it is one or the other. I think it is complimentary," Holme said.

He explained the competition from law firms comes from contract attorneys who have health care experience.

"I think we can expect to be really engaging the contract attorney market," Holme said.

Read More: