Legal firms are looking at ways to optimize their legal services as the conventional way of working 100% in the office has been radically challenged during the pandemic. Now, many legal firms expect growth across most global geographies and are re-evaluating their location strategies. Right-shoring turns out to be different for different players.
Opening Legal and Business Support Centers in onshore, nearshore and offshore locations has been regarded as a cost-effective strategy since the turn of the century. Since then, many leading global firms have built their own business and/or legal support centers in locations all over the globe finding their own niche in locations such as the Philippines, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Florida or South Africa to mention just a few.
There are 5 top trends for the future of legal support services and their impact on location strategies of legal firms.
These legal support services trends have an impact on the location strategies of legal firms:
Where the legal support industry started with (mostly regional) consolidated centers onshore in large tier 1 cities, they soon followed a more cost driven strategy with offshore solutions in tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Now, we see more a focus on technology and services which results in reshoring and nearshoring solutions in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Some experts claim that technology will replace labor in total for which smart or well-connected digital cities are required. Also, there is this current Covid related wave that will very probably lead to more working from home – also in the future. However, especially low(er) margin business continues to seek the lowest cost locations, i.e. attractive new locations with deep labor markets and attractive/low cost.
Many legal firms expect growth across most global geographies and are re-evaluating their location strategies. Right-shoring turns out to be different for different players. An increase in reshoring and nearshoring the coming years can be expected (at the expense of offshoring legal support services) as these markets provide better access to talent and technical skills.
In case you are interested in receiving your copy of the White Paper ‘Global Legal Support Footprint & Right-shoring Location Strategies’ please contact Josefien.Glaudemans @bciglobal.com.