Some of the most prestigious law firms/lawyers in India are working for clients/law firms located in the US. A whole new group of legal services/ paralegal work that is being offshored to Indian locations has opened up very ambitious prospects for some of the high profile Indian law firms / lawyers who are now duly trained in all aspects of American law. The Indian lawyers do not find it very difficult orienting themselves to American law because in both India and the US, law has originated from the English common law.
After BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) it is now LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing and KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) that is wooing the Indian lawyer. It is natural for the Indian lawyer to opt for foreign projects as they get paid much better. It puts them and the US law firms in a win-win situation. Lawyers have to be paid 300 dollars per hour in the US, and it is now possible to save over 60% of this money by outsourcing the work which also helps the US client as it reduces the cost of litigation. And of course Indian lawyers are happy to get a share of the Forrester predicted 4 Billion dollars LPO pie.
What are the different types of services that are actually sent to India by the law firms and communities? Well here is a list of the different legal outsourcing services that have been sent to various legal/paralegal entities located mostly in India.
Legal transcription
Legal Coding
Patent/ Intellectual property
Legal Research
Document review
Legal document/letter drafting services
Legal discovery analysis / review
Contract drafting
Finance / data processing
Networking operations
Legal secretarial work
Law firm web design
Paralegal services
Due Diligence work
Insurance claims /processing
Legal animation (Pre-trial preparation)
Besides the savings in terms of lower wages there are also other benefits of legal outsourcing. Smaller companies now don’t have to employ back office staff or invest on infrastructure for such works. Further they can keep themselves away from the hassles of tedious time consuming work and give themselves more time to focus on the core issues of the case and litigation. However before any legal work is outsourced a thorough research has to be done with regards to the background of the offshore company. All security issues should be handled professionally as it involves sensitive client information that must never be misused.