How Law Firms Can Win More Outside Counsel Work

This column answers law firm leaders’ questions by going straight to the source: the in-house counsel who hire, manage, and sometimes challenge them. Each piece starts with what clients are saying and ends with actionable insights on how your firm can win more outside counsel business.

Client budgets remain tight, and firms are feeling it—through rate pushback, write-off requests, and longer payment cycles. So what does it take to win outside counsel work right now? To find out, I spoke directly with the in-house leaders who determine which firms get hired and which don’t.

Their message was consistent: discounts offer temporary relief, but the firms that stand out change how they work, not what they charge, by sharing costs and risks, offering tools clients can’t justify buying, and tailoring advice to better fit the client’s business realities. 

Let’s begin by outlining the challenges in-house leaders face, then move to practical ways firms like yours can win more of their work.

Inside your clients’ reality

According to the 2026 Association of Corporate Counsel Chief Legal Officers Survey, the role of the chief legal officer (CLO) has continued to expand well beyond traditional legal oversight. Nearly two-thirds now oversee compliance and the corporate secretary function, with growing responsibility for ethics, privacy, cybersecurity, and other frontier risks. Legal departments are being pushed to become more efficient, even though 35% say budget and resource constraints are the biggest thing holding them back.

Nearly half report that their CEOs expect them to build fluency in technology and AI, while concern over geopolitical risk and AI regulation is rising faster than traditional legal issues. The result is not just “doing more with less,” but doing more faster, under greater scrutiny, and with higher expectations of judgment. In-house leaders are turning to outside counsel as a pressure valve, but need firms who understand the business context, help manage risk intelligently, and deliver advice that actually moves the organization forward.

As one chief compliance officer I spoke with put it, “We’re the last point of resistance in businesses innovating fast [read: taking on more risk], but we’re doing it with smaller teams and smaller budgets.” And they’re getting savvy about how to use their limited resources. A chief legal officer explained: “I’m not only moving downstream for services; I’m also getting more creative about how to manage the work internally long-term because this isn’t sustainable.”

Against this backdrop, firms that prioritize their own economics over their clients’ constraints quickly erode trust. As one head of product counsel put it, “This is so obvious that I’m reluctant to say it: pushing 7–9% fee increases to us when we’ve been through multiple rounds of layoffs means you’re not reading the room.” A chief legal officer at a public company echoed the point: “Wall Street expects operating income leverage. Our rate of growth in spend can’t go up, and we are incentivized accordingly given our stock-heavy executive compensation. Shareholders leave if we don’t grow operating income at the same rate or higher than topline revenue, and we need incentive alignment from our outside partners.”

Bottom line: Clients want outside counsel who understand where they are and meet them there. 

What real partnership looks like

From my conversations, three themes and plenty of tips emerged. (Spoiler alert: None require cutting your rates.)

1. Shared definition of value: Strong client partnerships start with cost discipline, aligning how you manage client spend with how you manage their risk.

• Clients expect firms to spot cost-saving opportunities without being asked and allocate work intelligently – like shifting routine tasks like public-filings review to paralegals. 
• They want you to help them spend their budget wisely. One savvy in-house leader told me she’ll gladly pay for a partner’s strategic advice in a call, but has her team document it instead of paying for a lengthy memo, and she also prefers to handle small document productions internally using firm-provided keywords.
• Enough has been written about the “death” of the billable hour, so here’s the short version: firms still aren’t moving fast enough to meet client expectations. Clients want to pay for value, not subsidize a firm’s cost structure. Flat fees, phased pricing, and other alternative models provide cost certainty and signal a willingness to share risk. If you’re not ready to move away from hourly billing, the minimum step is better upfront conversations about scope, budget, and staffing to eliminate monthly surprises.

2. Shared tools: Sharing access to resources that don’t incur an extra cost to you is one of the simplest ways to build loyalty and invest in your clients.  

• Firms that do this well leverage what they already have. If you spot information-governance gaps during discovery, offer the client a policy template. If you use contract-review tools, offer a quick scan for common issues—saving the client time while positioning the firm for higher-value work, such as privacy or commercial contract matters.
• Training works the same way. Many legal departments have limited budgets and increased risks to manage. Offer short educational sessions or share your templates and frameworks. As one chief compliance officer told me, “Learning about the law is your core competency. For us, it’s one department of many. If you’re willing to train my team, I’ll remember that the next time work comes up.”

3. Shared expectations: Understand what your clients need and in what form they need it. 

• A key differentiator is knowing when to provide directional advice versus deep analysis. Delivering a 10-page memo where a short email would suffice creates unnecessary work for already stretched teams and drives up costs.
• The best outside counsel also narrow their advice to a client’s reality. As one product counsel told me, “Tailor your advice to our business’s level of risk. If you can’t help yourself, flag what you left unaddressed, but don’t charge me for edits I’ll never send.” 
• Communication matters too. Some clients prefer a quick call to email. As one in-house leader put it, “Ask me my love language. Don’t assume it’s the same as yours.” 

The dual pay off 

Winning more work means playing the long game instead of maximizing this month’s bills. That shift pays off twice. Externally, it builds operational stability: fewer write-offs, faster collections, and steadier revenue. Internally, it creates lawyers who feel valued and confident in their impact instead of drained by rate debates and write-downs.

Bottom line: Firms that work this way end up with happier clients and happier teams, and both are factors that improve your financial footing.