Digital Legal Marketplace or Transparency Drives Sustainability
Paper on B2B legal service acquisition.
Process and digital marketplace

The sustainable development of any society directly depends on the degree of development of the legal system. ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) sustainability is rapidly becoming the essential predicate of any successful business. What have until recently been considered “intangible” assets are acquiring a very tangible value: for example, ESG investments have consistently been on the rise since at least 5 years and perform better than non-ESG ones.

In the legal market and system, Environmental and Social sustainability parameters do exist and matter, but are not as distinctive of the sector as the Governance parameter. Efficiency, accountability, traceability, transparency -which are all elements of Governance- are those that make the difference between a sustainable and a non-sustainable law firm or corporate legal department, and their interaction

A digital marketplace for B2B services is a major way to begin achieving sustainability in the legal market. It consists of a platform where companies can find information on lawyers and law firms, analyse them and arrange a tender process (conventionally called “Beauty Contest”). Through Beauty Contests, companies describe the subject of a general or specific assignment and invite lawyers having the desired requirements to provide offers describing expertise, competence, organization, the team of professionals that candidates to the assignment, strategical approach to the assignment, rates and any other element relevant for the company to make a decision. At the end of the process, the company compares the offers and chooses the lawyer/law firm to engage, sometimes after interviews with a shortlist of lawyers resulting as the best in the Beauty Contest. This ensures the efficiency, accountability, traceability, transparency mentioned above, enhancing the good governance reputation of companies.

The current paper summarizes survey results on Digital Legal Marketplace. The objective of the conducted survey was to better understand the issues that impact the future of the legal service acquisition and the importance of a digital legal marketplace as a way to implement sustainability in the legal market.

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