Outsource Legal Services to a U.S. Drafting Bench
Route drafting, research, document review, and litigation support to a supervised outside provider. Returned to your firm for review and signature.
Hand a defined workstream to a U.S. drafting bench under a matter-specific engagement non-disclosure agreement, conflicts-cleared before any source material moves, on a SOC-2 Type II matter portal. Engagement structures cover one-off project work, standing overflow capacity, and full outsourced legal department arrangements for operating businesses without an in-house team of their own. It is one form of legal process outsourcing, built for the firm or company that wants the work done, not a lawyer to hire.
NDA · Conflicts · Rule 5.3
Engagement-NDA before source material moves
Workstreams That Route Through Our Drafting Bench
Outsource legal services with Legal Tank are organized by workstream. Each card below is a dedicated service page with its own bench, scope discipline, and engagement structure. Outsource one workstream as a project, outsource a stack of workstreams as overflow, or outsource the full operating envelope as an outsourced legal department.
Contract & Instrument Drafting
NDAs, MSAs, operating agreements, employment and IC packages, IP and licensing instruments, and financing documents. Routed to our contract drafting bench.
Contract drafting servicesLegal Document Drafting (Umbrella)
Motions, affidavits, declarations, wills, trusts, and organizational documents. Routed to our umbrella drafting bench for non-contract instruments.
Legal document drafting servicesLegal Research & Memos
Multi-jurisdiction research, statutory survey memos, case-law analysis, Shepardizing, and cite-checking on tight turnaround.
Legal research servicesDocument Review
First-level due-diligence review, contract review, lease abstract review, and e-discovery first-pass review with privilege flagging.
Document review servicesLitigation Support
Discovery response drafting, deposition and transcript summaries, exhibit indices, motion drafting, and e-filing preparation.
Litigation support servicesBrief Writing
Trial-level briefs, summary judgment briefs, post-trial motion briefs, and bench memos drafted for the engaging attorney's signature.
Legal brief writing servicesAppellate Brief Writing
Federal and state appellate opening briefs, response briefs, reply briefs, petitions for rehearing, and certiorari petitions on FRAP and local circuit rules.
Appellate brief writing servicesParalegal Bench
NALA CP and NFPA RP paralegals on a weekly or per-matter retainer for ongoing case management, intake, calendaring, and discovery workflow.
Paralegal servicesThe market uses a few overlapping labels for buying legal work from outside the firm, and they are not interchangeable. An ALSP (alternative legal service provider) is the broad category: any non-firm bench that delivers legal work, from document review to managed services. LPO (legal process outsourcing) is the slice of that category focused on routing defined, repeatable workstreams, which is the model this page sells. A fractional or virtual general counsel is a different shape again: a part-time senior lawyer who advises and signs, rather than a bench that drafts under your supervision.
If you are still mapping the category and want the provider-side overview, start with legal process outsourcing explained, our pillar on how LPO providers, engagement models, and pricing structures compare. This page is the action side of that pillar: the workstream catalog and the handoff itself.
Three Ways to Buy Outsourced Legal Capacity
We structure engagements three ways, and the right one depends on whether you need a single deliverable, a standing backstop on top of in-house capacity, or a multi-month bench that functions as your outsourced legal department.
Project engagement
One matter, one deliverable.
A single workstream with a fixed scope, deliverable, and turnaround. The conflicts check, engagement NDA, and matter portal are stood up for the one matter, and the engagement closes when the deliverable lands. Suits firms or in-house teams testing the bench before any standing commitment.
Single-matter overflow, one-off briefs, one-off contract drafts, single research memos.
Overflow capacity
Standing access, variable hours.
A standing engagement on a weekly or monthly cadence with a soft hours ceiling. The drafting bench is reserved for your matters and absorbs the spikes (deal-flow surge, discovery cycle, brief season) without dragging partner or associate time off priced engagements. The hour count flexes with the workload.
Mid-size litigation and transactional firms, in-house teams with cyclical surge.
Outsourced legal department
Multi-month retainer, dedicated bench.
A named drafter (or named bench) provisioned to your matter portal on a multi-month retainer. Standing access to drafting, research, review, and paralegal workstreams under one engagement NDA. Functions as the back office for a small in-house team that does not carry that capacity in headcount.
Operating businesses without a full in-house team, lean GCs, holding companies.
Managed services / dedicated FTE
Owned outcome, named full-time equivalent.
A managed-services structure where we own a whole recurring process (contract intake, first-pass review queue, discovery pipeline) to an agreed service level, or seat a dedicated full-time-equivalent drafter reserved to your matters alone. You buy a maintained outcome or a reserved head rather than metered hours, still under one engagement NDA and your Rule 5.3 supervision.
High-volume contract shops, in-house teams outsourcing a standing function, ALSP-style programs.
Turnaround runs per workstream, not per engagement structure, and the windows below are indicative, confirmed against your deadline at intake rather than promised in the abstract.
- Research memos and case-law surveysA few business days from a scoped question.
- Deposition and transcript summariesWithin about a business day of the transcript landing.
- Contract and instrument first draftsA handful of business days depending on complexity.
- Document review and e-discovery first passRolling batches on the review cadence you set.
- Trial and appellate briefsMultiple weeks, scoped against the filing deadline.
If you are buying for a company rather than a law practice, the department-style and managed-services structures function as a fractional or outsourced legal department: a standing bench for contract flow, governance paper, and research that a lean in-house team or solo general counsel cannot carry in headcount. It runs the repeatable work; your general counsel or outside firm keeps advice, negotiation, and signature. Companies buying this way have a dedicated entry point through the corporate legal services desk, which covers the same bench from the company buyer's side.
How Outsourcing Stays Confidential and Conflict-Clean
The recurring objection to handing legal work to an outside bench is confidentiality and conflicts hygiene: who else sees the source material, who owns the work product, and how do adverse-party conflicts get caught before they taint the matter. Four controls answer those questions before the engagement opens.
Engagement NDA before source material moves
Every matter starts with a matter-specific engagement non-disclosure agreement. The NDA scopes confidentiality to the matter, names the engaging attorney's privileged communications inside the NDA's protected envelope, and survives engagement closure for the term the engaging attorney specifies.
Conflicts ledger run at intake
Before any drafter sees source material, the matter is run against the conflicts ledger to flag adverse-party representations and current engagements that would taint the work. If a conflict surfaces, the matter is declined or routed to a walled-off drafter with the engaging attorney's written waiver.
Encrypted matter portal, named-user access
All source material, work product, and drafter notes move through SOC-2 Type II infrastructure. Access is provisioned to the named drafter and the engaging attorney; nobody else inside Legal Tank can open the matter. Access is revoked on engagement close.
U.S. drafters, work-product assignment
Drafters sit onshore on U.S. labor and confidentiality standards. The engagement letter assigns work-product ownership and all derivative rights to the engaging firm or business so the deliverable can ship straight into a closing binder, court filing, or client engagement without a downstream IP question.
Where the supervising attorney sits
Every workstream we route is structured so the engaging attorney sits as the supervising attorney of record under ABA Model Rule 5.3. Our drafter prepares the work product; the engaging attorney reviews, signs, and files. The attorney-client relationship with the underlying client never leaves the engaging firm, and the duty of competence sits with the supervising attorney through every deliverable we hand back.
Onshore, offshore, nearshore, or onsite: why we keep the bench in the U.S.
Outside legal work sits in one of four places, and where the drafter sits changes the confidentiality and unauthorized-practice exposure the engaging attorney carries. We run the bench onshore because it narrows three risks at once: it keeps the work under U.S. confidentiality and labor standards so a Rule 1.6 disclosure question does not cross a border, it keeps the drafter inside a supervised, non-representational lane so no one strays into the unauthorized practice of law, and it keeps privileged source material from moving to a jurisdiction where a court might read the transfer as a waiver.
Drafters in the U.S., on U.S. confidentiality and labor law. Privileged material never leaves the jurisdiction, so the privilege-waiver and cross-border data questions do not arise and Rule 1.6 stays straightforward for the supervising attorney.
Drafters in another country at the lowest labor cost. Permitted under ABA Formal Opinion 08-451, but it puts privileged data under a foreign legal regime, widens the confidentiality and potential privilege-waiver surface, and raises the supervision burden. We do not sub-contract offshore.
Drafters in a nearby time-zone country. Closer overlap than offshore, but the source material still crosses a border and sits under another jurisdiction's confidentiality rules, so the waiver and Rule 1.6 exposure remain wider than an onshore bench.
A contract drafter seated inside the firm. Tightest supervision, but it carries headcount, workspace, and equipment overhead and does not flex with the workload the way a reserved bench does.
From Quote Intake to Steady-State Cadence in Six Steps
Every engagement runs through the same six-step flow whether the matter is a one-off project or the front edge of a multi-month outsourced legal department engagement.
- 1
Quote intake
Send the matter description and workstream through our quote form. We return scope, lead drafter, turnaround, and engagement structure in one business day.
- 2
Conflicts clear
We run the matter against the conflicts ledger. If clean, we move to engagement; if not, we decline or set up a walled-off drafter with your written waiver.
- 3
Engagement NDA
We countersign a matter-specific engagement NDA and provision the encrypted matter portal. The NDA terms survive engagement closure for the period you specify.
- 4
Drafter assignment
We assign a named drafter (and peer reviewer) whose lane fits the workstream and controlling jurisdiction. Their access is provisioned to your matter portal only.
- 5
First workstream
First deliverable runs end-to-end inside the portal: drafting, peer review pass, and return to your supervising attorney for the Rule 5.3 review and signature.
- 6
Steady-state cadence
If the engagement converts to overflow or department-style, we set a weekly cadence call with the engaging attorney to confirm scope, conflicts hygiene, and forward workload.
What Buyers Say After Steady-State Cadence Settles In
Five-star feedback from general counsel, managing partners, in-house deputies, and solo practitioners who routed workstreams through our bench for a project, an overflow engagement, or a department-style retainer.
“Our regional health-tech in-house team was running three counsels at a vendor-contract volume that needed five. We engaged Legal Tank on a department-style retainer, named drafter provisioned to our matter portal, and they took on first-pass MSA review, NDA preparation, and BAA drafting. Three months in we held the same throughput on three counsels and gave the senior counsel back her negotiation time. The conflicts ledger flagged one vendor we were already adverse to on a separate matter and walled the drafter off without our having to ask.”
“We are a fourteen-attorney litigation boutique and trial-prep season kept eating associate hours that should have been on case strategy. Their litigation-support bench took deposition summaries, exhibit indices, and discovery response drafting across two large commercial cases. Work product came back on the matter portal each morning, our lead attorneys reviewed and signed on our own letterhead, and we billed the time on our normal hourly rate without disclosure complications because the engagement structure read clean to our state bar guidance.”
“Solo transactional practice, one-counsel shop, and a venture-financing closing landed on top of three M&A intakes. Engaged Legal Tank on a single project for the financing closing set: SAFE-note conversion mechanics, operating-agreement amendments, and the closing-binder index. Senior drafter returned the deliverable on the timeline they quoted, I reviewed and signed on my letterhead, and the round closed without me having to refer the matter out. I keep their portal access provisioned for the next deal.”
“Industrial holding company, lean GC, lots of contracting volume in three operating subsidiaries. Standing overflow engagement with Legal Tank's contract drafting and research benches under one engagement NDA. Their team handles vendor MSA prep, distribution-agreement revisions, statutory research on supply-chain compliance, and they coordinate with our outside corporate counsel on the M&A pipeline. Cadence call every Tuesday morning, named drafter on every workstream, and the supervision documentation has held up to every conflicts inquiry our outside firm has asked about.”
What Legal Tank Owns, What Your Firm Owns
Engagement boundaries are written into the engagement letter at the start of every matter. Our drafters never sign deliverables, never appear in court, never communicate with the underlying client, and never file anything that reaches a court docket or counterparty without your signature. The boundaries below restate the engagement letter in plain language.
Engaging attorney is the supervisor of record
Under ABA Model Rule 5.3, the engaging attorney is the supervisor of record for every workstream we deliver. Supervision touchpoints (intake review, deliverable review, signature) are documented on the matter portal so the supervision protocol is auditable on a bar inquiry.
Senior drafter + peer review on every deliverable
Every deliverable runs a senior drafter on the workstream plus a second-set-of-eyes pass from a peer reviewer before it leaves the portal. The engaging attorney still owns the Rule 5.3 review and signature.
Yes, when it is supervised. ABA Formal Opinion 08-451 addressed the question directly and concluded that a lawyer may outsource legal and non-legal support work, including to providers outside the firm, so long as the lawyer stays responsible for the work. The opinion ties that permission to the same duties that govern any delegation: competence, meaningful supervision under Model Rules 5.1 and 5.3, protection of client confidences under Model Rule 1.6, screening for conflicts, and a reasonable fee. Model Rule 1.6 is the load-bearing one for confidentiality: it requires the lawyer to make reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized disclosure of information relating to the representation, which is why the engagement NDA, the conflicts ledger, the encrypted portal, and the onshore bench above exist. Meet those duties and the outsourcing is ethical; skip the supervision and it is not.
Legal Tank
- Runs the conflicts ledger and engagement NDA before any source material moves.
- Assigns the named drafter and peer reviewer matched to the workstream.
- Drafts, runs the peer review pass, and handles the agreed revision cycles.
- Returns work product through the encrypted matter portal with revocable access.
Engaging Firm or Business
- Performs the Rule 5.3 review on every deliverable returned through the portal.
- Signs the deliverable, the cover letter, and any filings on its own letterhead and bar number.
- Holds the attorney-client relationship with the underlying client.
- Manages courtroom appearances, client counseling, and strategy calls in-house.
Questions Buyers Ask About Outsourcing Legal Work
How does legal outsourcing work?
What is the 80/20 rule for lawyers?
What is a real life example of BPO?
What legal work can be outsourced?
How do you choose a legal process outsourcing provider?
Is outsourcing legal work ethical?
What is the difference between an ALSP, LPO, and a fractional general counsel?
Route Your First Workstream to Our Bench
Send the matter and workstream through our quote form. We return scope, named drafter, and engagement structure in one business day.
Quotes return same business day on intakes received before 5 PM ET