Scars from the Great Recession are still visible on the books of most major corporations, and it's clear that a lot of in-house legal departments didn't escape unscathed.

Large markups on billable hours, expensive associate resources and lack of cost oversight on the vendor's behalf in many cases led to painful internal cuts, resulting in more work for internal legal resources that would otherwise have been outsourced to law firms. Lessons have been learned and are being applied. Legal departments are now focused on delivery and cost — and are becoming more educated shoppers when it comes to the external provision of legal services.

They have to be. Identifying the work to outsource is one thing, choosing who to outsource to is another. Providers of legal services outsourcing (LSO) — or legal process outsourcing (LPO) — are now plentiful, offering the services and cost that corporate clients are seeking. According to some sources, some 47 percent of companies outsource between 11 percent and 30 percent of their legal work to LPOs.