08 | 21 | 2007 Posted By Gerry Riskin

OUTSOURCING: "Lawyers are service providers. We are not gods"


"The objective is to have only the most valuable people in London or New York, and the others in India, China or Columbus, Ohio,'' said Robert Profusek, co-head of the mergers and acquisitions practice at Jones Day in New York, who sends low-end work to the cheapest locations and plans to open a document center in India. ``Lawyers are service providers. We are not gods.''

This comes from a gem-packed Bloomberg article today titled: “Jones Day, Kirkland Send Work to India to Reduce Client Bills” co-authored by Cynthia Cotts and Liane Kufchock

Here are some additional outsourcing factoids from the article:

  • “Outsourcing will move about 50,000 U.S. legal jobs overseas by 2015”
  • “Companies like Dupont, Cisco and Morgan Stanley have legal departments in India”
  • “General Electric Co. sends about $3 million a year in routine legal work to its Indian affiliate”
  • “Kirkland & Ellis, the seventh-largest U.S. law firm, works with offshore attorneys at the client's request”
  • “Law firms can earn more by using labor they can mark up without disclosure,'' said Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law (referring to offshoring)
  • “Law firms contribute 45 percent to offshore revenue, while corporate law departments contribute 36 percent”, ValueNotes said.
PUNCHLINE:  If you are gathering intelligence on outsourcing, this article is a “must read”

Written By:Jack Payne On September 1, 2007 6:04 AM

With lawyers in India charging only $20 an hour for research, I would be surprised if the number of outsourced legal jobs was not much larger than 50,000 by 2015.

Written By:Corpus Global On February 28, 2008 10:34 AM

Corpus Global is a world legal solutions company headquartered at India’s cotton city Coimbatore with branch offices at Chennai and Bangalore. We have representative offices at United States and United Kingdom with long term clientage at Australia and Newzeland.
Corpus Global Management team is from highly established and dedicated legal professionals who have decades of legal expertise in Indian and U.S legal systems and with in-depth outsourcing management experience.

Corpus Global is looking out for startegic allainces with US Law firms/Consultants for procuring Legal Outsourcing work. Please visit our website at www.corpusglobal.com to know more about us and E-Mail us at corpusglobal@rediffmail.com for any further informations.

Vice President (Marketing)
Corpus Global
World Legal Solutions

Written By:Corpus Global On March 5, 2008 7:20 AM

A Nasscom report says that there are about 100 LPO's in India. But in reality there seems to be hardly 10-20 LPO's taking the Industry seriously and moving forward. The major reasons for that are the artificial hype and the proposed high revenue factor which has thought every businessman to start an LPO. The ultimate result is the poor quality of work product of many LPO's which affects the industry as a whole. The impact of it is that the Legal Outsourcing is heading towards Philippines and other countries.
It’s high time Industry people should realise that it is not only the cost effectiveness or the availability of lawyers at a very low cost which has caused the LPO storm towards India, but it is because of the availability of the pool of talented lawyers.
Off late it has become a habit for many of the present LPO's in India to neglect this talented pool of lawyers and lean towards non-lawyers to do their work products for the only reason of saving their costs. Where do these trends take us?
Moreover most of the LPO's today take up compliance and paralegal related works for the basic reason of doing some business and getting revenues simply with the help of fresh non law graduates. The reason behind it, off course cost saving! But is it the right thing? Is this what US and UK expects from outsourcing their legal works to India?
Time has come now that big corporates have sprung in to this LPO stage after a careful watching period of two to three years. A quite reminder to all the corporates to take these considerations in mind and give importance and recognition to the talented pool of lawyers and to have an approach towards the actual expectations of the US and UK in providing the actual Legal Outsourcing services.
Furthermore it is appealed to the corporate world to bring up some International standards and regulations to the Indian LPO's sector and ensure that the LPO storm doesn’t move away from India because of poor quality standards of work product.
When most of the State Bar Associations in US have approved the concept of "Legal Outsourcing" it's the right time for all the LPO fraternity in India to join hands together and make India to be the only LPO destination in the world.
Though there has been several conferences being held about LPO's most of them today act only as an marketing tool for every individual LPO's rather than serving the ultimate objectives. Let's all join together to change forever.

Vice President ( Marketing)
Corpus Globa: World Legal Solutions
www.corpusglobal.com