September 19, 2025

flexible resourcing efficiency collaboration

When it comes to legal tech and managed services providers, legal teams today are spoiled – and overwhelmed – for choice. From contracts AI and eDiscovery platforms to ALSPs, compliance solutions, and legal research tools, the landscape has never been more crowded. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that more tools automatically mean more efficiency, more innovation, or better results.

But the reality? Very often, ‘less is more’ because quality beats quantity, every time.

The Pitfalls of ‘More’

A ‘more is better’ mentality creates a substantial risk of vendor bloat, whereby law departments end up with a mishmash of unforced errors:

• Integration nightmares, especially siloed systems that don’t communicate lead to lost data and inefficient workflows
• Oversight overload, draining time and resources having to manage multiple SLAs, security audits, and onboarding processes
• Poor user experiences, with a fragmented hodgepodge of tools frustrating legal professionals and stunting adoption
• Heightened risk exposure, with the volume of vendors increasing potential vulnerabilities and creating more compliance concerns

Stop and (Re)Assess

If your current vendor landscape feels cluttered or inefficient, that makes it a good time to reassess. Ask yourself three questions:

• Are our tools helping us move faster and smarter – or slowing us down and complicating things?
• Are we reducing risk or increasing it?
• Is our vendor ecosystem driving value or just adding noise?

Don’t Chase – Curate

Law departments and law firms thrive when they stop chasing the latest tools and instead curate their vendor ecosystems with precision. This approach focuses on finding the right providers, not simply more of them. With both technology and services, quality is what moves the needle.

Companies that consolidate legal resourcing vendors and panel relationships create a powerful competitive advantage through enhanced strategic alignment, cost efficiency, and service quality.

By working with fewer, carefully selected partners, legal teams can:

• Negotiate better rates through increased volume
• Build deeper collaborative relationships that foster innovation
• Significantly reduce the administrative burden of managing multiple vendor relationships

From a legal services provider perspective, this approach enables external partners to develop close knowledge of your business, customer expectations, and specific requirements – resulting in targeted candidate selection and faster placement times. Done well, your resourcing partner acts as a brand ambassador in the marketplace, promoting your business beyond your direct channels.

A consolidated panel also improves data analytics and performance tracking, offering clearer insights into recruitment ROI and market trends, while strengthening your negotiating position for future contract renewals.

Rather than spreading resources thin across numerous superficial relationships, a focused vendor strategy transforms your recruitment partners into true extensions of your team, ultimately delivering higher-quality talent acquisition outcomes while reducing both direct costs and hidden administrative expenses.

What Sets Top Vendors Apart

Legal teams prioritise vendors that:

✅ Deliver high-quality, reliable solutions

✅ Integrate seamlessly with existing systems

✅ Offer strong customer support and continual product improvements

✅ Are easy for legal professionals to adopt and use daily

Concentrating on these attributes is the way to ensure you partner with providers whose solutions truly work and fit into your ecosystem, the critical element in transforming the way your team operates.

Once you shift the conversation away from accumulating tools and toward curating partnerships that deliver real impact, meaningful change begins.

How are you prioritising quality over quantity in your vendor decisions?

Curious to hear how others are approaching this challenge and distilling their external staffing and resourcing partnerships? Contact our team of resource specialists:

For UK, contact – Natalie Limerick

For US, contact – Natasha Jones

For APAC, contact – Val Pitt