The Era of the Law Firm Panel is Ending

For nearly three decades, most corporate legal departments have used law firm panels—which are lists of preferred or approved providers—to decide which outside counsel to engage. In a world where law firms and corporate legal teams worked hand-in-glove year after year, panel criteria brought structure and rigor to a decision process at risk of being overly influenced by familiarity and clubby relationships.

But we no longer live in that binary world. GCs now have a wider array of options, including alternative legal service providers (ALSPs), legal tech vendors, AI-empowered in-house talent and/or providers, and law firms—to choose from when deciding how to source legal work. Many GCs that I’ve talked to say that they now ignore or look beyond their panel law firms routinely because their needs, pressures, and priorities have changed.

Expanding options beyond panel firms gives adroit GCs more flexibility and strategic control over their legal ops budget and work allocation. But losing panel structure and criteria can also make sourcing decisions more complex, cumbersome, costly, and haphazard, potentially eroding any value gained. Rather than a panel of law firms, GCs today need a dynamic decision rubric to help them identify the right solution for the right problem at the right price.

Panels Were Established for a Different World

To develop a new approach to sourcing decisions, it helps to understand why law firm panels mattered in the first place.

As the economy became more complex after World War II, reliance on outside law firms increased. But the massive wave of corporate restructuring in the 1990s forced organizations to think differently about the value of every dollar spent. In response, management imposed more oversight and fiscal discipline on every department. Perhaps no function needed that more than legal.

The modern concept of the law firm panel is most commonly traced to DuPont. In 1992, legal leaders examined their relationships with law firms and implemented new standards and limits. Downsizing their roster from over 350 firms to a select 34 gave DuPont more clarity over performance measures and more leverage to negotiate favorable rates or fee arrangements.[1]

That created a win-win arrangement at the time. Exceptional law firms gained easier access to clients. The organization benefited when their law firms had a keener understanding of their strategic goals, risk tolerance levels, and internal politics.

Word got out and the idea spread. The law firm panel quickly became the norm. GCs turned to law firms when they lacked the capacity or expertise to do the work in-house or the level of risk or complexity exceeded their comfort level. Cost or budget was a secondary consideration at best.

The Price of Change

Fast forward to 2025. I first heard about the demise of the law firm panel in mid-2025 when talking to a GC at a FTSE 100 company. Legal ops budgets were finally easing up, but this GC was sending an increasing volume of work to non-panel law firms and other providers, including ALSPs. Why? Because hourly billing rates at their panel firms had become ridiculously high and they were under pressure to find more cost-effective high-quality alternatives, but without sacrificing work quality.

A few weeks later, when I sounded out a number of GCs at The Economist General Counsel Summit, I started hearing variations on the same theme. Some told me they didn’t have a panel anymore. Others said they were basically ignoring panel policies and engaging whichever firm presented the best value. As a 2026 survey of 516 global GCs[2] commissioned by Axiom notes, budget increases have resumed but 90% of departments continue to be pressed on performance metrics related to cost savings, budget management, external legal spend, and efficiency.

Where are they turning? Over 80% of those GCs plan to move more work in-house[3], to ALSPs, to AI, or some combination of the three. These options make sense for different reasons. Traditional law firms insist on charging partner rates for work that can be (and probably is) handled by associates. ALSPs offer more competitive pricing, especially for work that isn’t high risk or complex.

Then there’s AI. Handling excess work internally once meant costly increases to headcount; but AI now makes it possible for individual lawyers or small teams to do work that once required many hands and long months.

In that environment, law firm panels are not only irrelevant, they also hamper cost effectiveness and productivity.

Out With the Panel, In With the Portfolio

Today, the options for legal sourcing have legitimately expanded. They include:

• Traditional law firms
• In-house lawyers
• AI-empowered in-house lawyers
• Flexible or alternative legal talent providers
• AI-enabled legal solutions
• Integrated tech + talent models

GCs no longer need to ask which firm on their panel should get a particular task or project. Instead: What’s the right combination of talent, technology, and price for this project or task? A new selection criteria can start with factors such as level of risk and complexity, need for specialized expertise, volume, urgency, and cost.

Given those considerations, more organizations will end their practice of turning to traditional law firms as “one-stop-shops” and reserve them instead for high risk, high profile, or highly complex issues. In-house talent might be used particularly for work that requires close collaboration with business departments or cross-functional teams.

Urgent or high-volume projects that threatens to absorb too much internal capacity might be best suited for an ALSP. Repetitive or detailed work might be accomplished more quickly and inexpensively with a technology-enhanced solution, overseen by the in-house team.

It will be up to the GC and legal ops to determine which performance measures matter. Businesses and solutions that meet those standards become your new portfolio of preferred or approved options. Deciding when to deploy those options is a little more complex and nuanced than in the past. But GCs should be excited about their new ability to think and act strategically and more cost effectively in meeting the challenges and opportunities of the world we live in now—not the world panels were designed for thirty years ago.

[1] Kaplan, Ari. "The DuPont Legal Model." Legal Assistant Today, Nov./Dec. 2005, www.legalassistanttoday.com/feature2_nd05-2/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2026.

[2] Axiom Law. "2026 GC Survey Report." Axiom Law, 10 Feb. 2026, www.axiomlaw.com/resources/articles/gc-survey-report. Accessed 18 Mar. 2026.

[3] Axiom Law. " 2026 GC Survey Report." Axiom Law, 10 Feb. 2026, www.axiomlaw.com/resources/articles/gc-survey-report. Accessed 18 Mar. 2026.