Self-serve, by which clients address some legal needs on their own, can be aided by outside counsel

However much law departments can responsibly offload to their clients, or never see in the first place, means the department can attend more to activities of higher value (See my post of Sept. 14, 2005 about Cisco’s self-service model.)

Law firms can lend a hand, as Eversheds appears to have done with its online program, called “@work,” a collection of training, knowledge and transaction tools (Law Tech. News, Feb. 2006 at 34). The new offering lets clients answer a web questionnaire, click a button and generate a pre-approved document. With capabilities like that supplementing their own, law departments can shunt some of the routine work to clients.