{"id":5652,"date":"2018-10-30T17:17:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T21:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/?p=516492"},"modified":"2018-11-20T12:24:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T17:24:05","slug":"theres-no-such-thing-as-a-competitive-legal-market-but-there-are-ways-to-make-it-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2018\/10\/30\/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-competitive-legal-market-but-there-are-ways-to-make-it-better\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s No Such Thing As A Competitive Legal Market — But There Are Ways To Make It Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Whenever we get a new report on the legal industry’s business landscape, we note an increasing divide between the elite handful of Biglaw behemoths — either by size or reputation or both — and the rest of the Am Law 200. Chalk it up to the enduring “CYA” factor that whispers to in-house lawyers that “no one gets fired for hiring Cravath.” But at the same time, we’ve also seen some of the smaller firms — the elite boutiques and the scrappy regional players — encroaching more and more on the mid-sized and even Biglaw firms that don’t quite make the elite cut. With smaller firms able to leverage technology to deliver results for clients at a lower price point, some savvy GCs are taking advantage where they can. But the lack of a cohesive strategy for hiring outside counsel leads to a bit of a hodgepodge approach that has left a lot of the Am Law 200 sitting in a hollowing middle.<\/p>\n

But in truth, the legal market has never been perfectly competitive. It’s entry-level economics that the Platonic ideal of a market involves “perfect information” which is generally laughable and never more so than in the legal sector. For decades, clients developed personal relationships with Biglaw firms and never bothered to shop out work. When they do, a broad swath of firms are never even invited to compete. How can clients guarantee they’re making the right call for their company when most of the hiring logic is mostly derived from anecdote and habit?<\/p>\n

This lack of perfect competition is a tagline Bodhala uses on its website. The legal procurement company is providing transparency for in-house attorneys seeking to engage the right outside counsel for the right price point. It’s a task befitting the corporate name, which is sanskrit for “the illumination of talent.”<\/p>\n

Bodhala’s legal analytics offer in-house counsel a wealth of information about the entire Am Law 200,\u00a0high-quality boutiques, as well as a number of local firms that clients can easily customize to find exactly what they want. The platform also leverages machine learning technology to make predictive calls about opportunities to lower costs with other firms. Beyond talent procurement, the product offers spend optimization features that grant clients an opportunity to really market test quotes for legal services. Finally, something approaching perfect information.<\/p>\n

As Bodhala co-CEO Raj Goyle describes it, Bodhala’s mission is to\u00a0“solve several kinds of pain for clients.” And when it comes to client pain, outside spend is a notorious one. What Bodhala brings, in Goyle’s opinion, is a big data play and a robust algorithm to allow clients to get deep on solving procurement pain. As he puts it, most legal departments are “still in the age of the slide rule while managing a $400B industry.”<\/span><\/p>\n

While most corporate legal departments feel secure that their gut calls have, largely, worked out, it turns out that there’s a lot lurking in the data that corporate legal departments aren’t seeing,\u00a0resulting in heavy opportunity costs. Goyle offers the example of a Biglaw partner listed on the website as a fund formation lawyer. But analyzing available data reveals that an overwhelming majority of the lawyer’s work is really private equity. Has this categorical inaccuracy led the company missing a bargain of a private equity lawyer? Have they staked the company on an affordable fund formation lawyer who lacks the necessary expertise? These are among the questions Bodhala can resolve.<\/p>\n

Goyle’s personal story isn’t the “risk-averse” path of the typical lawyer. But the tale of how he got to the legal tech world from his days at Harvard Law with a stopover in the Kansas legislature animates the spirit of Bodhala.<\/p>\n

Goyle likes to say his risk-taking is a product of being dropped as a child, but his mother doesn’t find it funny… since she’s an obstetrician. In reality, the entrepreneurial spirit came naturally to Goyle, the son of immigrants who both got medical degrees and ran their own practices in Wichita. And it’s not a stretch to say that having successful professionals as parents afforded him a little wiggle room to gamble.<\/p>\n

Goyle, who was “hit with political bug early,” actually sees a consistent through line from his time in Democratic politics, serving as a member of the Kansas legislature, to legal technology.<\/p>\n

The idea of solving problems has always animated me… Leveraging the same passion toward solving this huge piece of the economy run exceptionally poorly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a pretty good answer. Personally, I’d have said that as a Democrat in the Kansas legislature, I spent a good deal of time trying to bring a large number of people to a better future that they resisted for often ill-conceived reasons and that’s a lot like changing the culture in the legal profession, but Goyle’s answer is probably better.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bodhala seeks to empower in-house counsel through data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":426817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[102,1077,22,1080,7],"class_list":["post-5652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-biglaw","tag-bodhala","tag-in-house-counsel","tag-raj-goyle","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThere's No Such Thing As A Competitive Legal Market - But There Are Ways To Make It Better - Above The Law's Legal Tech Non-Event<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2018\/10\/30\/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-competitive-legal-market-but-there-are-ways-to-make-it-better\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There's No Such Thing As A Competitive Legal Market - 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