The advent and benefit of legal managed services isn't lost on corporate legal departments. But a lack of prior experience leveraging alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) for various tasks prevents most legal departments from fully embracing them, according to a new EY survey.

EY Law on Monday released its "Realizing the Benefits of Legal Managed Services" report. The accounting firm commissioned a survey of 1,058 legal departments in 25 countries to understand why some are actively using legal managed services while others remain reluctant.

Respondents were placed into three categories: pioneers, explorers and observers. EY categorized 37% of its survey respondents as "pioneers" who previously outsourced law services to non-law firm providers and are actively looking to expand their use of ALSPs.