As technology has advanced and there’s been an increased push toward efficiency and cost-savings in the legal industry, the market for alternative legal services has grown exponentially. However, while there may be a lot of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) out there, not all are created equal.
Too often with ALSPs, there’s no way to ensure the quality of the work you’re getting and you run the risk of outsourcing important tasks to vendors who just aren’t up to the job. You end up with anonymous freelancers doing your work with little accountability, when what you really need is the right team of lawyers with the right technology doing high-quality work in the right location and at the right price.
That’s where Mindcrest comes in. Strategically designed to bring skilled management and sophisticated technology to the world of alternative legal services, Mindcrest provides fully project-managed legal services and it excels at handling large-volume and increasingly sophisticated legal work with the levels of technology, process, and oversight that top clients need and expect. If you’re looking for a worthy law firm or in-house alternative, look to Mindcrest.
Specializing in What They Do Best
One of the things that differentiates Mindcrest from other ALSPs is that they don’t try to be a jack-of-all-trades, purporting to cover every niche area of law, plus HR issues, finance, technology development, and administrative issues to boot. Instead, they stick to what they know best and have been doing well for nearly 20 years.
Mindcrest offers services in four distinct and finely honed practice areas: compliance, contract management, legal analytics, and litigation and investigations. By refining and building up these specialty subject matters over time, Mindcrest has positioned itself to offer the best legal services available in some of law’s most critical practice areas. Successful legal practice requires focus and expertise, and Mindcrest has built itself around that notion.
The Secret Ingredient? The Mindcrest Method
Much of Mindcrest’s success can be attributed to what it calls the Mindcrest Method — the project management aspect of their services that they’ve refined over the years and are always continuing to refine in order to bring forth coordinated combinations of the right lawyers in the right locations at the right price to best handle each specific client engagement. Mindcrest has devised a unique methodology for combining project management, process, workforce management, technology, analytics, reporting, and metrics on every project — and, if their satisfied clients across the globe are any indication, the method works.
Simply put, Mindcrest looks at every unique engagement individually and comes back with a tailored solution. Relying on highly qualified lawyers spread across Chicago, New York, London, and India, Mindcrest assembles the best possible team with expertise in the practice area involved, layered with the right project management approach and the right technology. This is alternative legal services that are not merely convenient, but actually built around the client’s needs.
Superior Training
Unlike many ALSPs, Mindcrest takes the time to invest in their lawyers and train them to the highest standards in the industry, in the process giving them career paths that allow them to grow within the organization. They do this through a thing called Mindcrest University — a massive initiative designed to offer learning and training for both new and experienced lawyers.
After passing a rigorous hiring process, Mindcrest hires are put through a stringent on-boarding program and trained in Mindcrest’s key practice areas and the way the company does business. The training program has been built and refined with input from clients, and today is unlike anything else in the industry. They also offer over 100 courses for lawyers within the company on substantive legal issues, leadership training, project management training, and technology training, both in-class and online. They even offer a fellowship for U.S. lawyers to go to India to help design the training and train the India-based team.
The result of all this training is that many lawyers who started as entry-level trainees with Mindcrest are today leading major client engagements. For the client, this means the ability to reap the benefits of years of investment and training in high-quality lawyers who bring the best skills and expertise to alternative legal services.
The Right Technology Makes All the Difference
Modern legal practice relies on technology, and Mindcrest is focused on providing the best of the best. A dedicated team, dubbed mTech, is devoted to reviewing new technologies and choosing the best third-party tools available to incorporate into their solutions.
Because everything Mindcrest does is driven by technology, they’re constantly evaluating tools and partnering with the right vendors that fit with the Mindcrest Method. These are not lawyers dabbling in software development — instead, they choose the best-in-breed product available on the market and build their services around that software, in order to produce the best possible result for the client.
The Takeaway
What really sets Mindcrest apart and makes them so good at what they do is their ability, honed over many years, to assemble the best possible team at the right price point to handle high-volume work that requires a particular skillset, complete with the right technology and superior management from start to finish. Mindcrest delivers the whole package in ways that most other providers can’t.
Mindcrest isn’t just a clearinghouse for contract attorneys or freelance lawyers looking to supplement their incomes or pick up some extra work between jobs. It functions in every engagement as a well-oiled machine, thanks to superior project management skills — a key element to successful, high-volume projects with lots of moving parts, and one that many law firms lack. Mindcrest is fully invested in their workers and their method, and what clients see as a result is high-quality work project performed by a highly skilled and managed team of lawyers who work efficiently and for the right price.
Not all ALSPs offer fully managed services that combine both project management and quality legal deliverables. When you’re looking for an ALSP, be mindful of what you’re getting. When you want it done right, you want Mindcrest.