More than a quarter of general counsel would be unlikely to appoint a law firm to a panel or for a major piece of work if it did not have a form of low-cost support centre.

A survey of senior in-house lawyers carried out by Legal Week found that 23% would "probably not" pick a firm without a low-cost centre as they would "question the value I was receiving". A further 5% said they would never appoint such a firm.

The findings of the survey suggest that, while some buyers of legal services expect firms to offer alternative models, many others still question the quality offered by near-shoring or outsourcing.

While more and more clients want to know how firms are going to deliver their services, with 59% saying they ask firms to provide details of near-shoring operations either "almost always" or "more often than in the past", there are still concerns over the quality of work, according to those surveyed.

More than a quarter of GCs (26%) said they had questioned the quality of work provided by low-cost centres "to the point I've refused to use them" with a further 44% saying they have occasionally had doubts over the quality provided.

Meanwhile, 31% of respondents said that "it is absolutely vital to know how work will be delivered" with none saying that they looked at only at pricing when selecting firms to carry out work.

There was a more lukewarm response from in-housers asked whether they would consider setting up their own near-shoring centre, as Carillion did in 2012. More than a quarter (28%) said they would never consider the move, while only 8% said establishing a similar centre was something being actively investigated by their organisation.

Related article:
A shore thing? What in-house lawyers think about law firm near-shoring