Depending on where you look, a coming recession is either inevitable or just very likely. One thing is clear: Economic uncertainty will be a fact of life in 2023 and it will affect just about every industry, including legal services. Looking ahead, “new law” solutions that offer flexible resourcing, such as legal marketplaces, may help fill many of the gaps that companies will experience during this uncertain future.
To get a full picture of the current legal services market, you need to look back to the current economic downturn’s precursor, the Great Resignation, during which employees left the legal industry in record numbers. For law firms and corporate legal departments alike, the result has been vacancies that are taking too long to fill in the face of a workload that is as busy as ever, despite fewer resources to rely on.
So, what is the impact of the Great Resignation and economic downturn on the legal industry, and how will those trends fuel the rise of alternatives to the traditional law firm model? For many companies, one answer to the current predicament has been to turn to legal marketplaces, staffing firms or alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) to address their needs quickly and cost-effectively.