Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Legal process outsourcing - lawyers working smart

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) involves offering legal services that are required by an outsourcer, such as legal departments, law firms or organizations from other countries, to be provided by an outsourcing legal service provider from a different country, because their legal services are more cost effective. The concept of LPO was introduced to lawyers in India in 1995 The first law firm which undertook legal outsourcing in India was Bickel and Brewer.
Outsourcing legal services to highly-qualified, English-speaking lawyers based in India gives a clear edge to companies in terms of cost, quality and turnaround time. Legal process outsourcing to India is still in a blossoming stage with about 1300 professionals providing such services to US from India. According to a study by the US based Forrester Research, the current annual value of legal outsourcing, which is worth $80 million can rise up to $4 billion and can fetch around 80,000 jobs in India by 2015. The estimation is that Indian LPOs can become around $20 billion industry in the next decade.
Educational institutions in India such as the IGNOU School of Law in association with the Rainmaker, which is a leading training and recruitment solutions provider, has tailored a certification course – the Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Process Outsourcing – to specifically educate and train students to suit the requirements of this booming sector.
The Indian Government also has taken major initiatives to promote outsourcing through Foreign Direct Investment in 100% equity of the firm in LPO / BPO. Foreign corporations can set up their subsidiaries as private limited companies with limited liability over share capital 100% income tax exemption for export of many services like back office operations, legal databases, claim processing etc. LPO as a Career Option for Lawyers in India LPO was not considered a terrific career opportunity for lawyers in India. However, this has changed drastically. With a large number of law firms providing LPO services, this has emerged as a lucrative law career for Indian lawyers. By mid 2010, the LPO industry had created 12, 000 law jobs in India. Job sites continue to showcase ads for law career opportunities for law graduates.

LPO Services Offered by Lawyers in India The services provided in the LPO domain are usually classified into manpower intensive services and high-value services. These services are:
• Contract Management.
• Document Reviews and Data Verification.
• Legal Research.
• Deposition Summaries.
• Patent Renewals.
• Patent Analytics and Patent Research.
• Trademark Renewals, Search and Watching.
• IP Support Services and Digital Content Watching.
Placement in Indian LPO (How and Why) : ‘A better opportunity’
As of now, the LPO companies recruit lawyers and other supporting staff through the following ways Campus recruitments, Placement consultants, Online job portals, Employee recommendations, Industry networking. The LPO company desperately look for the candidates in the queue to LPO sector who are Experienced and trained professionals (Patents or Legal), Exposure with foreign laws and Foreign qualifications in legal stream.

Legal services are the next destination for the Indian outsourcing industry. The US legal industry estimated to be $166 bln employs approximately one million trained lawyers and 5 lacks legal support assistants, which incurs huge expenses. In comparison to this, off shoring in India becomes a better opportunity.
Why Opt for Indian Lawyers


Apart from cost reduction another major factor is turn around time (24/7) of Indian attorneys while servicing their US/UK clients for they can review their work the next morning where the former cant spent the whole night in accomplishing whatever has been entrusted upon him.

Since the outsourcing is competitively priced, one might think that the process outsourced is simple. Where as in reality the outsourcing includes legal research, legal transcription, database creation and maintenance, scanning and indexing evidence, document coding, document review and annotation, document processing and management, creation of forms and precedents, document drafting and patent drafting. Apart from simpler projects, outsourcing also takes areas of complex litigation, mergers and acquisitions, insolvency, patents and compliance are the top topics for farming out work. The main point of concern is the confidentiality of lawyers. Yet there are other benefits that outweigh the confidentiality aspect. Law firms do not have to employ full time support staff that would incur the heavy expenses. Rather the employment is on ad hoc basis required to an unlimited level. The costs are competitive and can cover the wide network of support LPO services .

Indian Lawyers working smart
In Gurgaon and Bangalore, India the industry has benefited from the Global Financial Crisis, due to the increasing number of litigations and bankruptcies. Teams of Indian lawyers have achieved notable success providing legal research and drafting services in high-profile U.S. litigation matters. As reported in the ABA Journal, "[t]he market for outsourced legal work is booming in India. While lawyers there are doing a lot of routine work, they are also handling some interesting legal matters, including work for the makers of movies and television shows."
Law Carriers – LPO Boom in India

It is estimated that approximately 1200 professionals working with around 50 LPOs operating from India while the expected headcount of professionals (lawyers) is 30000 by 2010. There are currently over a million lawyers in India and an average of 75,000 more passing out every year from Indian law schools. India with its crop of intellectual lawyers has the relevant skill-set to handle even high value legal tasks like legal research, drafting contracts and making determination regarding responsiveness of the document and privilege.
In 2010, the LPO industry in India witnessed tremendous growth, with India doing very well in the domain of mergers and acquisitions. There was greater awareness about joining the LPO industry as one of the law careers. Other reasons why India is a preferred destination for LPO are as follows:
• Large pool of English speaking lawyers.
• Common Law System
• Freedom of press
• Tradition of independent judiciary
• Liberty to enter into contracts
• Easy access to highly skilled lawyers in India Pay rate of lawyers in India are 10% to 15% less than the lawyers in the US or the UK.
• Several Indian law firms operate 24x7.
• Favorable government policies.
• Legal proceedings in Indian courts take place in English.

The Grey Area and LPO Space for Lawyers
The legal skills imparted to the Indian law graduates are comparable to the ones taught in recognized law schools of US and UK in the common law system. But the question is – "how many such brains are available readymade?" or "How many companies would afford to impart training and till what time?"
The LPO trains its professionals for better opportunities in this domain where he gets an international exposure to interact and discuss with foreign lawyers and corporate legal departments coping up with the LPO services as per international standards and practices. Even the fresh graduates are getting a package of 15000/- to 30000/- per month six times of what BPO pays. The hike in the salary as compared to 2-3 years back ranges between 15-18% for fresh graduates and about 25-30% for senior professionals.
Future Prospects for Indian Lawyers in LPO
Indian lawyers need to pull up their socks. Legal process outsourcing (LPO) firms need them more than anytime before. Recent months have seen a significant increase in the demand of lawyers by these outsourcing firms in India, courtesy increased legal work from foreign clients and the restructuring of their offered services. LPOs like CPA Global, Pangea 3, Unitedlex, Infosys LPO arm are looking at almost doubling their headcount in the next 12 months.
There is an upward trend in terms of business acquisitions that are likely to be seen in the industry. This is the reason hiring to increase is anticipated. It is now a proved fact that Indian lawyers are proficient enough to cater to the US and UK markets.
Criticism Of LPO Is Widespread
The confidentiality aspect is sometimes under suspicion bringing concern about wide range in the quality of the work and struggle to get good customer support. There is no recourse if an Indian Lawyer violates ethical rules and that it may be difficult to avoid conflicts of interest when vendors may be serving clients with opposing interests; others are outraged that this amounts to the unauthorized practice of law. Much of the criticism is unwarranted. Lawyers in the U.S. may naturally feel threatened by the competition posed by LPO. But lawyers trained at Indian law schools are well equipped to handle due diligence projects and document review in litigation. With proper training, they can also handle more complex drafting projects. What is important is how well the outsourcing attorney supervises the work.
Russell Franks, the CEO and co-founder of IP Engine, a Boston based LPO which is focused on outsourcing patent prosecution and related IP work, put it this way:
“LPO should be viewed as adding a new layer to the traditional pyramid. This shouldn’t concern lawyers who can figure out how to manage these resources to provide their clients with a high quality and cost effective service. These lawyers have always been the best kind anyway, they just have a new arrow in their quiver. The folks who should be worried are those that end up charging clients too much for the quality of service provided because they do not know how to do this. The issue is that perhaps that profile fits a lot of lawyers who have not been used to clients demanding control over the budget.
Lawyers at all levels of practice should take note of this trend and look for ways to provide valuable services to clients. Be nimble: do not expect today’s cash cow to be alive tomorrow. Outsource what makes sense, and serve your clients well.

LPO NEWS

Sanctions Over e-Discovery Increase, More Oversight Needed


Are lawyers getting sanctioned for electronic-discovery violations more than before? So it seems, according to a study done by King & Spalding and reported in the Duke Law Journal. Such results are puzzling, considering that e-Discovery was supposed to simplify litigation.

More Sanctions for e-Discovery

The report reviewed a comprehensive survey of written opinions from cases in federal courts prior to January 1, 2010 — including motions for sanctions relating to ESI. They analyzed each case for various factors like type of case, sanctioning authority, sanctioned party, sanctioned misconduct, sanction type and sanctions to counsel, among others. What they found was staggering.

Of their analysis of pre-2010 cases, there were more e-discovery sanction cases and more e-discovery sanction awards in 2009 than in any prior year. In fact, there were more e-discovery sanction cases in 2009 than in all years prior to 2005 combined. To add insult to injury, the report also found that failure to produce ESI was the most common basis for sanctions.

e-Discovery is Only as Good as its Oversight

Theoretically, e-Discovery should establish a workflow so that data can be searched, collected, reviewed and analyzed in a manner that is both efficient and effective. However, considering that companies have more data than ever to comb through and classify, as well as conflicts between those implementing the e-Discovery infrastructure and those managing the workflows, e-Discovery isn’t always the magic bullet many believe it to be.

According to the study authors, one of the reasons that sanctions may be increasing is that often “more attention is focused on e-discovery than on the merits with a motion for sanctions an increasingly common filing.” Additionally, of the cases in which sanctions were awarded, the most common misconduct was failure to preserve ESI.

While the study doesn’t offer much advice about how e-Discovery solutions can help solve the problem, it does highlight the need for more uniform standards and guidelines to steer counsel through the complex tasks of discovery.

Ultimately, no matter the e-Discovery platform in use, companies need to take more control of how data is managed across the EDRM. Like most tools, e-Discovery is not magic, but if used effectively, it can help to manage risk and limit sanctions.

Source:- http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/sanctions-over-ediscovery-increase-more-oversight-needed-009838.php


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