LEGAL OUTSOURCING TREND

LEGAL OUTSOURCING TRENDSome of the dozen or so outsourcing companies that have sprung up over the last decade in India focus on low-level paralegal workkeeping track of filing dates and document reviews.I came across with many solo Indian legal practioner who is doing legal work such as documents review, legal research, litigation support and legal opinions for US, Canada and UK while sitting in the peace of their home.In 2001, General Electric added a legal division to a currently existing base of operations in India to handle legal compliance and research for two of its divisions, GE Plastics and GE Consumer Finance. American companies tend to be reticent about sending legal work overseas to outsourcing firms. Third-party outsourcing companies in India are secretive about their client lists, concerned about a backlash from workers or customers in the U.S.Even Microsoft, which has been widely reported to be using India for patent research, declined to discuss the company beyond confirming that Microsoft is a client and issuing a statement that "[as] a global company, we are constantly working to improve our ability to serve our customers worldwide in the most cost effective, efficient manner.Given this reluctance to discuss outsourcing, convincing a potential client to accept even a free sample can take months of lobbyingGenerally, the legal work is outsourced by legal department of the companies and solo legal practioner, small law firms to India but the trend is changing, large law firm is beginning to think about legal outsourcing to India.While the plight of underpaid legal researchers is unlikely to be the next cause clbre for the anti-sweatshop movement, legal outsourcing, whispered about now, is likely to become a hotly debated topic in American law soon. For now, third-party outsourcers remain popular mostly with corporate legal departments, which use outsourcing to keep costs down. Large law firms have been slower to send work to overseas outsourcers.But what if they were to come around? Thomas Morgan, the professional responsibility expert, says bar association ethics rules require law firms to pass on to clients cost savings from outsourcing. In theory, at least, it would take only one big firm looking for a competitive advantage to start a bidding war that could change the cost of buying legal advice in the U.S.The legal outsourcing to India is bound to grow further within next 5 years and shall resolve all the present controversies despite initial issues relating to security, quality and political issues.The US attorney shall get benefited by concentrating on quality legal work, thus enhanced fees and it will also help the small law firm to grow without requiring much investment and staff.The client shall also benefited in terms of reduced legal cost. The presently, the benefit of low cost legal outsourcing is not passed over to the client but US attorney shall have to pass the benefit to their client. We are clearly in the trial and error phase, which I expect to continue for another year or so. Bold corporations are moving in this direction cautiously but the lure of cutting expenses by 70 percent is a powerful siren. So long as the results meet expectations, expect to see more jumping on this bandwagon. Law firms will be led by the large British firms which are already spread across the globe. Adding Indian offices and centralizing work there will feel natural to them. Americans will follow slowly at best. The political controversy around off-shoring has focused a lot of attention on the issue. That attention has caused some law firms to take a wait and see attitude -- after all, some law firms are political animals. However, other law firms are progressive and are keenly interested in reducing costs and increasing responsiveness. For these firms, the political debate has actually raised awareness of off-shoring as a well entrenched business trend79,000/- jobs and approximately US 7 billion dollar are expected in India with a short span of time only from US outsourcing. Other countries i.e. Canada, Australia and UK have also started outsourcing to India.

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