Technology continues to reshape corporate legal departments, but one of the most consequential changes in the profession has been decidedly human: the rise of legal operations.
“If you look at what has materially changed the practice of law inside corporations, legal operations may have had a greater impact than any single technology,” says Christopher Gallagher, CEO of Trustpoint.One.
“Legal operations professionals have taken processes that were once viewed as incompatible with legal work and introduced structure, documentation, metrics, and accountability. They have helped legal departments become more deliberate about how work is assigned, managed, and measured.”
Trustpoint.One has undergone a similar evolution. Once known primarily for eDiscovery, the company has expanded into a full-service alternative legal services provider supporting corporate legal departments, law firms, and government agencies across eDiscovery, managed review, legal talent, governance, cyber breach response, legal operations, and consulting.
The company recently formalized many of those capabilities through the launch of its Legal Solutions Consulting business unit.
“A number of providers are very strong in a particular area,” Gallagher says. “Some are known for eDiscovery, others for managed review, legal staffing, or cyber incident response. Our objective is to bring those capabilities together in a coordinated and practical way.”
Gallagher spoke with Above the Law about how legal departments can identify opportunities for greater efficiency, the evolving relationship between law firms and ALSPs, the responsible use of artificial intelligence, and the professional asset that technology cannot replace.
Start With the Actual Problem
Conversations about legal transformation often begin with technology. Gallagher believes they should begin somewhere more practical: with the problems lawyers and legal departments are already trying to solve.
“What has been creating pressure over the last several months?” he asks. “Where are matters slowing down? Where is the department consistently spending more time or money than it should?”
Those questions tend to produce more useful conversations than beginning with a particular platform or AI capability.
“Legal operations is often the best point of entry because those professionals understand where the friction exists inside the organization,” Gallagher says. “They see the recurring issues, the resource constraints, and the areas where a process may not be working as effectively as it should.”
Although the details vary by organization, Gallagher says the challenges generally fall into three categories: controlling external legal spend, making better use of internal resources, and connecting technology to well-designed workflows.
“The specific process will depend on the size and complexity of the organization,” he says. “But the objectives are usually consistent: reduce unnecessary cost, improve efficiency, and create better visibility and control over legal work and data.”
That analysis often begins with outside counsel spend and internal capacity.
Is premium law firm talent being reserved for the matters that genuinely require it? Are internal attorneys spending time on work that could be handled more efficiently through a different delivery model? Does a temporary increase in workload justify a full-time hire, or would a flexible legal team provide a better solution?
“Legal operations professionals are coordinating all of those considerations,” Gallagher says. “They are balancing cost, risk, technology, internal resources, and outside providers. It is an increasingly important and demanding role.”
Formalizing Legal Solutions Consulting
For a growing organization, expanding capabilities is only part of the challenge. Clients and internal teams must also understand what those capabilities are and when to use them.
Trustpoint.One launched its Legal Solutions Consulting business unit in March to address that issue.
The work itself is not entirely new. Trustpoint.One had already been advising clients on legal workflows, governance, process improvement, technology implementation, and alternative delivery models. The new business unit gives those services a clearer structure and identity.
“We recognized that we needed to describe the work more clearly,” Gallagher says. “In some cases, our clients — and even members of our own organization — were not fully aware of the breadth of the experience available across the company.”
The initiative is intended to make Trustpoint.One’s expertise more accessible through defined solutions, case studies, and more direct communication about the business problems the company can address.
That emphasis on experience is intentional.
“I have seen many legal services become more standardized over the course of my career,” Gallagher says. “But experience itself cannot be commoditized. The ability to recognize patterns, understand what has worked in comparable situations, and apply that judgment to a client’s specific circumstances remains highly valuable.”
Law Firms and ALSPs: Increasingly Complementary
The relationship between large law firms and alternative legal services providers has changed considerably over the past decade.
“There was a time when ALSPs were more likely to be viewed primarily as competitors,” Gallagher says. “Today, the more sophisticated firms tend to recognize that the two models can be complementary.”
Large law firms are best positioned to handle complex legal analysis, strategic counseling, significant investigations, and high-stakes litigation. ALSPs can support that work through technology, process management, flexible staffing, data analysis, managed review, and other scalable services.
“The strongest law firms understand where they provide the greatest value,” Gallagher says. “They also understand that clients do not necessarily want premium law firm resources applied to every component of every matter.”
Trustpoint.One is increasingly included in law firm proposals and RFP responses, often with defined roles and pricing. For a general counsel, that can demonstrate that the firm has considered not only legal strategy, but also how the matter will be delivered and managed economically.
“It shows that the law firm is thinking seriously about efficiency,” Gallagher says. “The firm remains responsible for the legal strategy and the client relationship, while the ALSP provides the infrastructure, scale, technology, or specialized resources needed to support the engagement.”
Some firms are also reconsidering whether they should own and operate business units that sit adjacent to the practice of law, including certain eDiscovery and managed services functions.
“Many firms are concluding that they can serve clients more effectively by focusing on the practice of law and partnering with providers that specialize in operational execution,” Gallagher says. “The goal is not to diminish the role of the law firm. It is to create a delivery model in which each participant is doing the work it is best equipped to perform.”
ALSPs, in turn, benefit from recruiting experienced lawyers and legal professionals from a wide range of firms and corporate departments.
“That is one of the ways we have developed our expertise,” Gallagher says. “We are not limited to seeing how a single firm or legal department approaches a problem. We work across many organizations and are able to identify effective practices, recurring challenges, and approaches that can be adapted to different environments.”
The result, he says, is a broader institutional perspective.
“We can take what has worked well in one setting, combine it with lessons learned elsewhere, and build more effective workflows. When the relationship works properly, the law firm, the ALSP, and the client all benefit.”
A Practical View of AI
No discussion of legal operations is complete without addressing artificial intelligence.
Gallagher is optimistic about the technology, but skeptical of claims that AI will eliminate the need for lawyers or fundamentally remove human judgment from legal practice.
“AI is not going to eliminate lawyers,” he says. “It will change the nature of some legal work, just as earlier technologies did.”
In document review, for example, technology may reduce the number of attorneys required to conduct a linear review. At the same time, it increases the need for lawyers who understand the underlying legal issues, the technology being used, and the defensibility of the process.
“The work may require fewer people performing repetitive review,” Gallagher says. “But it creates greater demand for experienced attorneys who can validate results, identify limitations, and use the technology responsibly.”
Trustpoint.One recently used an AI-assisted process to analyze nearly two million documents as part of an early case assessment and case strategy exercise. The system generated draft strategy memoranda that were then reviewed by experienced attorneys.
After completing its own analysis, the law firm involved concluded that the findings were highly accurate and aligned closely with its assessment of the matter.
“That type of analysis could historically have required a very large team working for several weeks,” Gallagher says. “We were able to complete the initial process in approximately a week and a half, at a substantially lower cost utilizing AI for early case strategy.”
The example is significant not because the technology operated without lawyers, but because it allowed experienced lawyers to reach informed conclusions more quickly.
“The value comes from combining the technology with the right people, the right data, and the right validation process,” Gallagher says. “Without those elements, speed alone is not particularly meaningful.”
The Next Phase of Legal Service Delivery
Looking ahead, Gallagher expects ALSPs to play an increasingly important role in helping legal departments implement AI and other technologies effectively.
“AI and ALSPs tend to perform best under similar conditions,” he says. “You need organized data, repeatable processes, clearly defined workflows, and high-quality human oversight.”
That is also where legal operations will continue to be essential.
“As legal operations becomes more established and influential within organizations, there will be greater emphasis on how legal work is structured and delivered,” Gallagher says. “That naturally creates a larger role for ALSPs that can combine process, technology, talent, and subject-matter experience.”
For Trustpoint.One, the focus will remain on helping clients assign work to the appropriate resources, implement technology in a defensible manner, and build repeatable legal processes.
Technology will continue to change. Gallagher believes the differentiator will be the quality and experience of the professionals responsible for applying it.
“The tools will evolve, and the workflows will evolve with them,” he says. “What organizations will continue to need are people who understand the legal issues, understand the technology, and know how to bring the two together in a practical way.”
“That is where experience remains indispensable.”