E-discovery is a job candidate's market, and law firms, legal departments and alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) are all hoping to keep up. But even as inside and outside counsel level up their salary offers in order to compete for in-demand talent like project managers, ALSPs may still have an edge—both in their willingness to offer more competitive salaries and the potential for upward career mobility.

Brad Blickstein of The Blickstein Group thinks that "especially compared to in-house [departments, ALSPs] definitely" have the ability to pay more. "The ALSPs and the Big Four have advantages in the form of investors," he said.

They also have a mandate to excel in e-discovery that doesn't necessarily apply to in-house teams or law firms. In-house departments, for example, may still be feeling the budgetary pinch of COVID-19-related business disruptions. While in-house legal departments had begun insourcing tasks like e-discovery, growing workloads and decreased head counts coming out of the pandemic could be eroding the trend.