Matador Legal » Legal Outsourcing

Legal Outsourcing news 7/27/09

Matador Legal — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:31:08 +0000

In house counsels are increasingly reducing the law firm panels. Read here.

A detailed and well researched piece on drivers in LPO growth here.

How to reduce in house legal costs. 10 metrics, here.

Torts remain unaffected in the recession, here.

Legal outsourcing issues in Nigeria

Matador Legal — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:33:12 +0000

One of the main issues confronting the profession of law in Nigeria is whether lawyers should bid competitively for their services. There are many pros and cons to this issue. A few of the same have been discussed below:

Can lawyers be treated as contractors ? Opinions on this vary from individual to individual. In highly regulate markets like India, the profession of law is looked upon as a service to the public and foreign firms are not allowed to set shops and advertise.

A more detailed discussion on the legal market is here.

Related Links:

UK Judge expects legal outsourcing to grow

Matador Legal — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:50:23 +0000

A report by UK Judge, Justice Rupert Johnson expects the legal outsourcing phenomena to grow. The full report is expected to come out by the end of the year. The report titled, the civil litigation cost review aims to analyse the economic relationship between law firms, their clients and the courts.

The final report also will contain recommendations on how the relationship between courts, law firms and their client can be made more streamlined and cost effective. The initial report highlights two areas of legal support that have a tremendous potential in the outsourcing space, e-discovery and IP.

http://eddblogonline.blogspot.com/2009/07/litigation-review-poses-opportunities.html

Lexis Nexis survey report on “Effect of the downturn on US law departments”

Matador Legal — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:47:26 +0000

Lexis Nexis has releases a new study on “Effects of the Current Economic Downturn on U.S. Law Departments”. This report can be downloaded here.

In this study about 10% of respondents said they Outsource Legal work offshore. As Rees Morrison, has observed on his blog that these numbers are appear unexpectedly high, since about half the respondents in this survey were small legal departments.

Other than the usual strategies to counter a downturn, a few additions include in-source work, ask for non hourly billing, renegotiate rates and review invoices more carefully.

IT Outsourcing Giant TCS records 35% revenue growth in Asia Pacific

Matador Legal — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:25:07 +0000

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s biggest IT outsourcing company has recorded a growth of 35% in revenues from the Asia Pacific (APAC) market, compared to a 20% annual growth overall for the year ending March 2009.

Nevertheless, the annual growth of 40% which TCS had maintained for the last five years could not be repeated for this fiscal year. This year TCS expects the growth rate to further reduce as other than China and India, the rest of the Asian economies are have recorded negative growth.

For a long time, the growth in the Indian Outsourcing space was due to IT outsourcing, but now business process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) have also started contributing in the outsourcing space. The IT story remains the bellwether of growth, with future growth expected from legal, education and HR outsourcing, to name a few.

How to start a solo law practice?

Matador Legal — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:15:36 +0000

In the recessionary economy, when many large firms are downsizing, a lot of law professionals are going solo. Some of them are being forced to, while some others want to start in a downturn, so they will have sufficient experience when the economy turns. As is true with many other things, one needs to try out a solo practice, before understanding if it will work for you or not. We have put together a checklist on how to execute this plan , once you have already decided on it.

Start visiting the state bar and take referral work from there
Take an executive suite, preferably in a law firm of your acquaintance. So you don’t have to shell out for the whole suite.
Start by keeping your expenses as low as possible.
You may hire remote receptionist and remote paralegal from outsourcing firms.
Prepare a budgetary plan, to run the law practice as a business. Other than the initial investment, try to make the law firm run itself.
Make sure you have a malpractice insurance to protect you against unlimited risk.
In a partnership, be sure the vision of the enterprise is discussed thoroughly.
Start a website. You need to buy domain name, hosting space, web mail etc.

After one has taken a stab at a solo practice, one might realize that he loves law more than the business of law, which is a fair learning. Some others enjoy the flexibility, and being on their own. Whatever the reason may be, it can be discovered only after one has taken a shot at it.

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/06/start_your_own_law_firm.php
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/19/layoffs-spawn-startup-law-firms/

http://legalresearchandwritingpro.com/blog/2009/06/22/in-which-i-respond-to-lawyers-who-complain-about-bar-ethics-opinions-that-allow-outsourcing-overseas/

Pinsents outsources legal work to South Africa

Matador Legal — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:41:16 +0000

Pinsents Masons, a global 100 law firms with offices in UK, Asia pacific and gulf region has announced outsourcing of legal work to Exigent, in Cape Town, South Africa. Observers note that this is the first time that a UK based law firm has decided to outsource legal work usually done by lawyers in UK to a vendor based in another country.

Various law firms in UK have been in the news lately for outsourcing all but legal work. Simmons and Simmons is looking to outsource litigation and corporate due diligence, Clifford Chance has outsourced IT and paralegal work to India, Eversheds has also outsourced secretarial work to India.

http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/news/1356985/pinsents-outsource-litigation-south-africa

BPO in Philippines to grow by 23 %

Matador Legal — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:43:34 +0000

The Business process outsourcing (BPO) market in Philippines is expected to do a business of $7.5 billion this year, according to a survey conducted by Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) and O2p.

The profile of the respondents encompasses, advertising, legal outsourcing and software development. A few pointers on the survey are here.

Legal Outsourcing: Challenges and Changes in Law education

Matador Legal — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:46:04 +0000

In this post we talk about two challenges currently being discussed on the web regarding legal Outsourcing: Data security and Challenges for the graduating lawyers in an increasingly globalized market.

Robert Unterberger, a litigator and a consultant with over 20 years of experience, discusses the fears over data confidentiality and national security when outsourcing. One of the options discussed is on shore outsourcing which we have discussed in an an earlier post, though for the BPO/IT outsourcing market. It is a model towards which most of Indian IT outsourcing companies are moving.

In another blog post, Anne Enquist discusses the challenges academicians have in envisioning a future with outsourcing and how to prepare law graduates in US to compete in a globalized economy.

There is a need to differentiate between functions which can be outsourced and which cannot be outsourced. THen the students in US can be better prepared on skills which may not be easier to outsource.

In an earlier post, we had covered that 45% law firms in UK are considering outsourcing the finance function. A study similar to this may be to be conducted for US law firms. There is also an increased need to make the graduating students aware of the business dynamics of law and the impact of globalization on the US legal industry.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwriting/2009/06/outsourcing.html

http://seattleulawfaculty.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/learning-to-live-with-outsourcing/

http://seattleulawfaculty.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/theyre-outsourcing-what/

What is the future of law firms ?

Matador Legal — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:02:09 +0000

There is an interesting panel discussion on the future of law firms, moderated by Jeff Blumenthal in the Philadelphia Business Journal here.

In the discussion, former Temple University Beasley School of Law Dean Carl Single feels that increasingly legal work is going to be outsourced.

Sources:

http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blogs/law/2009/05/more_from_roundtable_discussion.html

http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blogs/law/2009/05/still_more_from_roundtable.html

http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2009/05/25/focus1.html?b=1243224000^1832411&page=2