Lawyers on Demand
Lawyers On Demand (LOD) is a British legal resourcing business created by law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP (BLP). It uses a non-traditional freelance model to provide services to organisations requiring legal support.
LOD lawyers work on a project basis, as part of in-house legal teams or in private practice firms. One of the features making BLP LOD different from providers of short-term or interim legal resources is that it is owned and controlled by BLP, an established law firm. It has been used as an example of the legal profession addressing a period of disruptive change by incubating a new business model.
Development
BLP LOD was created in 2007 by Simon Harper, a partner at BLP, and Jonathan Brenner, then the firm's Head of Recruitment.[citation needed]
Early clients for the LOD service include Gucci, UBS and Vodafone.[1] Another reported client, Cisco Systems,[2] is a strong supporter of innovation in legal services and an investor in another ‘new generation’ legal service, Legal OnRamp.
In June 2012 BLP spun-out the LOD business as a separate BLP group company, still retaining strong links with the firm.[3]
Endorsements
BLP LOD resulted in BLP winning the Client Service category at the Financial Times’ Innovative Lawyers Awards 2008.[4]
In 2009, BLP LOD won an award[5] for HR innovation from The Lawyer and was a finalist for awards for innovation from Law Society of England and Wales[6] and Legal Business.
In October 2011 BLP LOD won the global InnovAction Award for innovation in the legal sector.
Professor Richard Susskind has commented that "Lawyers on Demand comes at a fascinating time in the current legal marketplace because it’s a marketplace in a huge state of flux".[7]
LOD has sparked debate from a number of prominent legal commentators around the merits of combining new model of legal service with a traditional one: “At this point in the evolution of the legal marketplace, when corporate clients are simultaneously pressured to reduce cost but also to maintain a sense of quality control, effectively offering clients two firms - one traditional, one innovative - could prove to be a remarkably powerful competitive advantage.”[8]
References
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