Legal Process Outsourcing

Presented By:-
Sourabh Dhillon
09BS0003033
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LPO…
Legal process outsourcing refers to the off shoring of
different elements in the legal process by law-firms,
corporations, and in-house legal departments (mainly
in US and UK) to offshore centers (mainly in India).

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Process…

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Challenges faced by law firms:
Escalating costs - secretaries costs between £25k-£35k pa
Lack of office space - may not be a problem given the
current economic climate
Low morale and motivation issues – primarily due to the
repetitive and/or mundane nature of the process
Backlogs in letter production and documentation - due to
staff shortages
Necessity of using temporary staff to alleviate short-term
staff shortages
Lack of quality and consistency – temporary staff can be
of variable quality and at a premium cost
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Outsourcing within Law Firms…
Law firms are well aware of what outsourcing can deliver - most provide
advice to companies on their outsourcing deals….
 Despite this, very few law firms have considered outsourcing for
themselves and even fewer have an outsourcing strategy.
However, the legal sector is showing signs that it is now adopting
outsourcing as a business strategy - partly driven by the economic
turmoil..
Clifford Chance has led the field by moving back office and secretarial
support to its own office in India, in order to carry out much of the
company’s administrative work. The outsourcing programme is expected
to yield more than £9.5m in annual savings.
Similarly, Pinsent Masons announced a deal to offshore its bulk typing and
transcription services as part of a move to change the role of its secretaries.

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Some drivers are particularly important for
law firms…
Core cost reduction.
Getting access to capability/resources
Better utilisation of in-house resources by outsourcing
low-value services

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Outsourcing Scope within Law Firms..
Outsourcing non-core activities
• Business support functions which lend themselves to outsourcing
e.g. IT and telecommunications.
• Why not turn to suppliers whose core business is to provide such
facilities on a more cost-effective basis.

Outsourcing less peripheral activities

• Law firms are beginning to outsource some activities directly

connected with their core business of giving legal advice.
• Scanning documents, word processing, legal transcription, coding,
conversion, digital dictation, reviewing transactional and litigation
documents, drafting contracts, research memoranda and due diligence
reports, patents, surveying laws of various jurisdictions etc….

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What can be outsourced…

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The Indian LPO Market……

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A News Clip
Business 360- UTV news

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Going Offshore- The Indian LPO market…
India has attracted much attention for its provision of off-shoring IT
services and call centres
Less well known is the fact that US and UK law firms, corporations
and legal publishers are outsourcing legal services to Indian lawyers
and paralegals.
Indian lawyers have a similar common law background and are
recognized overall as having good academic legal training.
Indian lawyers earn about half of what doctors and engineers do their.
A newly qualified lawyer from a top 10 school in India can expect to
earn about £4,000 to £6,000 a year.
Compare with the £30,000 per year earned by some of their British
counterparts.

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 The Indian Advantage..
English-speaking, skilled legal & IT professionals
Common Law-trained professionals
Thorough knowledge of the US & UK legal systems
Focus on litigation & transaction support, legal research, IPR management,
corporate secretarial, and much more
High productivity norms & strong work ethics
Cost-competitive facilities & employees
Secure online data transaction
Experienced Legal professionals
Presence of IT Infrastructure and Government facilitated schemes for ITES
sector, better telecommunication initiatives, power and transport facilities
Advantage of time zone
Supports regional assignments 12
 Illustrative example..
A London law firm employing four secretaries - cost of about
£150,000 p.a.
Including all ancillary benefits, bonuses, sickness and national insurance,
etc
Typically, but dependent upon the individual department, around half of
this work will be copy / transcription – basic secretarial support.
If work performed offshore, law firm can expect to save approx
£50,000 p.a.
Additionally, financial savings are accrued from using this variable cost
model - offshore support staff not directly employed by the UK law firm
and therefore the UK firm only pays for work completed.
The overhead savings go beyond the salary differential. By moving the
workload to another location, a firm can realise additional benefits in
terms of office accommodation, either by closing offices (or downsizing),
or by fitting more fee earners into office-space previously occupied by
secretaries 13
Going Offshore- The Indian LPO market…

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 Going Offshore- The Indian LPO market…
The Indian vendor space has over 100 service providers that can be categorized into three
groups:
 Captive centers of corporate
 Third party - Niche service providers (Stand-alone LPOs)
 Third party – Multi service providers. [E.g. Infosys & Genpact are the emerging player
in LPO industry according to recent announcements.

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 – Transition and sw itching costs
– Dim inished quality of service
– L oss of m anagement con trol

Risks

Commercial risks
– Security breaches
– Customer lock-in
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– Commu nication mismatches
– Loss of internal coherence
risks
HR / Communication
Off-shoring introduces additional Risks.
Culture
Language
Time-zone and distance differences.
Management styles.
Specific institutional features of offshore countries
Law, infrastructure, security, political conditions,
intellectual property regulations within the offshore
country.

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Successful Outsourcing works for:-
Less complex tasks
More repetitive tasks
Where monitoring is both possible and not cost
prohibitive
Efficiency can be gained from automation,
standardisation etc

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What is not Outsourced:-
Complex, uniquely fact-driven cases.
Fact-driven one-off cases.
Complex work without local supervision.
Unfamiliar subject matter

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Outsourcing legal work to India is no longer a
novelty. It's a reality…..
Thank You…

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