Leveraging Legal Analytics and Spend Data as a Law Firm Self-Governance Tool

Abstract

This paper discusses the advantages that law firms can get by using legal analytics (big data) to analyze how they do their work for their clients (and how their clients can benefit as well). We discuss the external forces that are reshaping the economics of today’s legal industry; the types of decisions, in determining how best to represent a client in a given matter, that tend to drive up costs; the possible reasons for those decisions; how law firms can use data-analytics tools to examine their own choices; and the benefits that stem from a data-driven analysis of those choices.

Keywords: legal ethics, professional responsibility, legal analytics, big data, law firms, clients, fees, staffing

JEL Classification: J0, J3, J4, K0, K2, K3, K4, M0, M1, M2, M5