Your outside counsel panel tells you who's approved. It doesn't tell you who to trust, and for what. That's why work slips outside the panel, and the roster keeps growing.
Most legal teams can name a dozen firms in any practice area. The hard part is narrowing that down to the ones worth keeping, seeing them in one place, and knowing whether what you pay still makes sense. That's where Legal.io comes in, with data behind every resourcing decision rather than a bigger directory.
The firm index is the newest piece. It goes live today with 9,000+ law firm profiles, and it keeps growing.
Your panel, in one view
For legal ops leaders and in-house counsel, the value here isn't discovery. It's control. Firm relationships sprawl over time. A firm gets added for one matter. A referral becomes a habit. Before long the panel has grown past the point anyone can see clearly.
Panel management gives you the opposite of a longer list. Pull in the firms your team already works with and see each one in a single place: practice area, size, location, and where its rates sit against the market. Instead of scattered notes and half-remembered rate conversations, you get one view of your panel and how it holds up.
Rates are where the surprises tend to hide. A firm rarely tells you where it sits against the market, and without that reference a proposed increase is just a number on a page. Put real market context beside it and a renewal stops being a guess.
When the work runs past your panel
No panel covers everything. When a new issue lands outside your usual firms, the index behind panel management puts 9,000+ vetted firms within reach, profiled the same way, so you can find the right expertise without starting from a blank search. Your trusted firms first, the rest of the market when you need it.
Built around trust
The index is built on the firms in-house teams actually retain and return to, chosen through real work rather than a search ranking. We want to keep building it that way. If a firm has treated your team exceptionally well, tell us. It takes about 60 seconds, and it shapes a directory built around what legal teams actually experience.
[Tell us which firms earned your trust →]
And when you're ready to bring your own panel into one view:
[Build the panel of firms you trust, for free →]
You've spent years learning which firms to trust. Now you can manage them like it.
Frequently asked questions
What is law firm panel management?
Law firm panel management is how an in-house legal team organizes and reviews the outside firms it works with. It brings your approved firms into one view, with details like practice area, size, location, and rates, so you can compare them and manage renewals in one place instead of across calls and spreadsheets.
How many law firms are in the Legal.io index?
The Legal.io firm index covers 9,000+ US law firms and is growing. Each profile includes practice area, firm size, location, and market rate context.
Is the Legal.io firm index free?
Yes. In-house teams can create a free account to access the firm index and set up their panel. Benchmarking your own panel's rates against the market requires adding your rate data, or the Legal.io team can help set it up.
How does outside counsel rate benchmarking work?
Rate benchmarking compares a firm's rates against the wider market by practice area, role, and region, so you can tell whether a proposed rate or a renewal increase is in line with the market.
