A growing number of law firms are outsourcing these tasks and functions to reduce costs, lower the burden on in-house personnel, and return their focus to core objectives. In addition, law firms are leveraging meaningful, long-term outsourcing partnerships to modernize their operations, enhance efficiencies, and improve the accuracy of their research.

Partnering with an industry-leading outsourcing provider can create access to rapidly advancing technologies and AI-powered solutions like e-discovery, document processing, and email management.

In the discussion that follows:

• We’ll take a closer look at the growing trend of outsourcing among law firms;
• We’ll explore some of the key benefits of outsourcing specific to the field of law; and
• We’ll highlight the unique role that business process outsourcing (BPO) can play in helping law firms access rapidly advancing AI technologies.

But first, let’s get an overview of the broader outsourcing sector.

The Growing Legal BPO Sector

As we’ve noted in the past, outsourcing is a rapidly growing sector. The BPO industry generated more than $390 billion in revenue in 2024, and Statista forecasts that this total will top $490 billion by 2029.

But this growth is about more than just rising global outsourcing revenue. The bigger part of the story is the deepening foothold of outsourcing across all industries. When TechSpeed entered the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector more than 20 years ago, there was a common perception that outsourcing was a complex business solution reserved for large, multinational industrial operations.

But the rapid pace of telecommunications, information technology, and AI innovations have changed the outsourcing landscape. Today, the outsourcing sector is characterized by:

A diversity of available third-party solutions;

• A talent pool swimming with specialized experts;
• Increased logistical ease thanks to innovative hybrid outsourcing models and
• Cost-effective access to the latest and greatest tech.

These features have helped make business process outsourcing a practical and viable option for businesses of every size and sector.

The Growing Trend of BPO Usage Among Law Firms

The legal industry is a perfect demonstration of this shift. According to the 2023 Staffing Ratio Survey from Thomson Reuters, nearly two-thirds of law firms outsourced at least one role in 2022 and saw a 6.3% increase in outsourcing compensation per lawyer. In other words, law firms are demonstrating a tendency toward investing more in outsourcing solutions relative to increasing in-house staff sizes.

Among the reasons for this trend are opportunities for cost savings, scalability, and access to advanced technologies, as well as access to the human expertise needed to leverage these technologies to their maximum potential. This has given rise to a wide spectrum of Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)—BPO partners that offer cost-effective, specialized services for a wide array of legal tasks.

Legal Service Providers (ALSPs)—BPO partners that offer cost-effective, specialized services for a wide array of legal tasks.

Tasks may include:

• Legal Document Services
• E-Discovery
• E-Due Diligence
• Class Action Suit Support
• AI-Driven Document Conversion & Extraction
• Email and Document Management
• Litigation Support
• Document Modeling
• Intellectual Property Research
• Written Transcription and more

In the section below, we’ll take a deeper dive into the benefits of this type of partnership.

The Key Benefits of Outsourcing for Law Firms

We tend to think of outsourcing as a cost-cutting measure, and it most definitely is. But evolving technologies and business conditions have revealed far deeper strategic benefits, including:

• Scalability
• Focus on Core Legal Work
• Access to Specialized Expertise
• Scaling Data Analysis

Below, we examine how law firms are taking advantage of these benefits today.

1. Scalability

Outsourcing certain operational functions can indeed reduce your law firm’s labor costs. But there’s more to it than that. Even before you reach the point of paying salary and benefits for in-house personnel, your business is already spending a fortune on recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and training. This kind of commitment represents a tangible business risk that is magnified when your law firm sees sudden shifts upward or downward in caseloads and labor needs.

Outsourcing both specialized and administrative tasks can give your law firm the flexibility to scale operations up and down with these shifts. This scalability is a pathway to cost-effective growth and thoughtful risk management.

Outsourcing these functions can help reduce overhead costs, streamline workflows, and as we will explore in the next section, give your in-house team the freedom to focus on what matters most.

2. Focus on Core Legal Work

Your law firm’s primary objective is to provide your clients with high-quality legal support and representation. But to do so, you must also manage an extremely wide range of time-consuming and sometimes tedious administrative tasks. These tasks can distract time, attention, and legal expertise from meaningful casework.

Outsourcing tasks like legal document process services, document conversion, data extraction, and other forms of litigation support can free your in-house staff to focus on more direct and meaningful client engagement.

3. Access to Specialized Expertise

The benefits of legal service outsourcing aren’t limited to just repetitive administrative tasks. In fact, many law firms partner with BPO providers to access specialized expertise in areas like intellectual property research, regulatory compliance, document management, and more.

Outsourcing can provide your law firm access to individuals and teams with specialized training in law-adjacent areas like e-discovery, e-due diligence, and AI-powered solutions like document conversion and extraction. With the right BPO partnership, your firm can tap into these solutions and the talent needed to use them effectively.

4. Scaling Data Analysis

Whether you’re managing a class action lawsuit or navigating a single case that requires the tabulation and analysis of numerous documents, receipts, and/or lines of coding, the right outsourcing partner can give your firm the power to process large amounts of data quickly and at scale.

This is exactly what our team at TechSpeed did on behalf of one notable legal client. We documented, processed, and analyzed 7 years of handwritten and poorly scanned receipts, ultimately helping our client win one of the largest class-action suits against the U.S. Government.

This is just one example of how outsourcing a combination of AI-driven processing, database integration, and pattern analysis can take your firm’s discovery processes to the next level without a massive investment in technology and training.

AI Technology and BPOs in the Legal Sector

As we’ve noted throughout our discussion, one of the top reasons that law firms are turning to outsourcing solutions in growing numbers is the access it provides to cutting-edge technology. Rapid advances in AI and machine learning now make it possible to automate routine back office functions, draft legal documents, monitor workstations, manage email accounts, and much more at a fraction of the time and labor.

As this technology becomes more sophisticated, strong outsourcing partnerships will become increasingly valuable. Today, law firms are adopting AI technology for tasks like e-discovery, document processing, document conversation, data extraction, and email management. This adoption is transforming how law firms operate by automating time-consuming processes and reducing human error.

Moreover, these solutions are helping to dramatically reduce the time spent on manual tasks, especially with large-scale litigation support and e-discovery, where legal assistants typically sift through massive volumes of documents, emails, and case histories.

Law firms looking for a competitive edge must be in a position to adapt quickly to emergent opportunities. In the coming years, the strongest BPO partnerships will be those that provide access to these rapidly advancing AI solutions and the expertise to maximize their potential.

A Strategic Shift Toward Toward BPO Utilization in Law

In some ways, the legal industry has been slower than other industries in adapting to technological advances. Law firms often stand on proud and storied traditions.

However, many law firms are beginning to recognize outsourcing as a critical strategy for improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, staying competitive, and gaining the benefits of the latest technology.