The desire to become a comprehensive end-to-end legal services and technology provider has been a driving force behind a slew of recent acquisitions and product offerings.

But Varun Mehta, a former executive vice president and CRO of Clutch Group and former president of Morae Global, isn't buying it. Mehta, who yesterday became the CEO of Factor (previously known as Axiom Managed Solutions), doesn't think a "one-stop-shop" strategy is all that beneficial, or practical, for legal service providers.

A jack-of-all-trades, he argues, is likely a master of none, and doesn't serve today's client well. As he steps into his new role, Mehta spoke with Legaltech News about the reasoning behind Factor's focus on specialization, the current competitive landscape, and what his company's strategy means for today's law firms.

Legaltech News: Chris DeConti, head of strategy for Factor, said the company will focus on relatively complex work such as contract negotiations rather than commoditized work such as e-discovery. Why the focus on complex work? Is it difficult in the current market to compete on more commoditized legal services?

Varun Mehta: If you look at the volume of legal spend versus the amount of work ALSPs are currently taking, it's still a fraction of what big companies are spending in legal. I think that is a classic maturity curve. I think there weren't that many things that people thought an alternative law firm or someone other than a law firm could do. … You're seeing a maturity of the market, which will still take time, but now we're going to have to be specialized and focused at doing things and doing them well at scale.

When we're talking about our organization, it has nothing to do with our ability to compete. It has to do with what our customers want, what customers are looking for. They're a bit fatigued by the one-stop shop where you are getting a little of everything but no expertise in anything.

Is this strategy than a better way to compete with other ALSPs and the Big 4?

I think there is room for all of us to grow, and that's what I'm excited about, because I think GCs are looking for more proven players, they're looking for more options.

I was just talking to a friend of mine who works in-house, and she said you want fit-for-purpose providers. You don't go to law firms for all your needs. You have certain firms that do great employment work and you focus that work on them, you have certain firms you focus on with M&A, etc.

We're going to have a similar type [of specialization] in our industry. We are going to see that specialization and focus. It won't be as specific as M&A, but it'll be different types of things. Some of them are getting more technology-focused, some of are getting service-focused, some are getting complex, and some will have lower complexity. It's not good or bad, it's just what the market needs.

Given Factor's specialization, do you believe law firms will see you as a direct competitor?

That could be the case for certain firms, [but] right now we're working on a number of opportunities for our clients where we are teaming up with law firms. We are bridging this interesting gap between old law and new law, and we kind of find ourselves smack dab in the middle.

We understand that for us, when folks talk about process reliability and technology, those are table stakes. That's what needs to be expected out of us, but it's still not always expected out of law firms.

We're never going to be the Michelin-rated chiefs that are going to drafting and figuring out how to advise on the new rules. We're not the artisans, we're not the experts at that. But we have our own core set of expertise. A law firm will map out a new regulation, figure out the impact and risk to an organization and then figure out a remediation path. How do we be the person that helps [the organization] resolve that remediation path through great legal expertise, through great market expertise, technology expertise, process expertise and proven experience?

I'm sure we'll be competing on opportunities against law firms, but I'm sure we'll be competing against ALSPs too. The only thing we're going to say to the market is there's going to be half a dozen things we're going to be good at, but we're going to be really good at them.

When you look at certain other folks in the space, they claim to have expertise in two, three, four dozen things, and that's awesome. I want to learn how to build that much expertise; I just don't think it's possible at scale. I don't think you can have 100 clients where you do 50 different things for each one. I don't think the market is that mature yet. We are excited to take our little part of the market and really become the best at it.

Do you see the ALSP market consolidating or shrinking, especially with the larger role played by the Big 4?

I don't think it's overcrowded at all. I think you're going to see more entrants. I think you're going to see newer opportunities out in the market. The reason why I say that is that I think general counsel are looking out to the market, I think they're looking for proven expertise. If you look at what happened in software … you saw a massive push toward individual apps and individual tools, and now people are bringing all those things back together again. I think we're going to have, over the next decade, companies that are going to be really good at a few things, and those are the ones that I think will really drive and innovate the marketplace.