The Indian legal process outsourcing (LPO) industry with approximately 100 service providers determining the outsourcing vendor space focuses on seven broad segments: legal transcription, document review, litigation support, legal research, intellectual property, contract related services and legal publishing services.
Lawyer
Clairvolex Knowledge Processes Pvt Ltd
They can be categorized into three groups:
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- Captive centres of corporates;
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- Third party – niche service providers (stand-alone LPOs); and
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- Third party – multiservice providers.
The third party vendors dominate the LPO space by employing the majority of the workforce in the sector. Vendors with niche focus and multi-service providers differ distinctly in terms of service offerings and capability hence their requirement of workforce is very skill specific.
Legal human resource
There are one million lawyers in India currently and 75,000-100,000 new lawyers graduate every year. The legal outsourcing industry offers huge scope and promises great career opportunities.
There were around 7,500 people in the legal off-shoring space in India at the end 2006 and the number of employees is expected to reach 32,000 by the end 2010.
The Indian legal outsourcing industry initial phase started a decade back when some litigation firms opened facilities with teams of lawyers and paralegal staff to scan, code, index and abstract documents.
From there the industry has travelled far and wide. Indian lawyers, like other professionals, have recognized the value of their education and this English-speaking human resource is all set to carry out a wide range of legal work and analysis tasks.
As a result several legal outsourcing companies have hired Indian legal professionals and are eyeing the foreign legal market.
A few specialized vendors such as niche service providers have hired Indian lawyers and scientists to conduct patent search and other IP work. They use proprietary databases and on-line tools to conduct research and determine whether the inventions can be patented.
The cost factor
Outsourcing has become a buzzword where costs and competitiveness matter.
While cost might be the most obvious incentive for outsourcing legal work to India, lawyers cite a number of other motivating factors also such as the sense of operating without a break when there is a time difference. The time difference between the United States and India gives US lawyers the sense of operating on a 24-hour-basis.
Outsourcing has also become the answer to the dilemma of erratic workflow facing the single practitioners that doesn’t justify the overhead of a full-time staff.
However, the wisdom of outsourcing has also been questioned. Concerns have been raised on the issue of dealing with client-attorney privilege, the time needed to review the work done by Indian professionals or to manage the flow of information.
But these concerns have been refuted by structuring the internal mechanics of firms to efficiently manage Indian and foreign lawyers in the same assignment. The initial reluctance to engage the services of temporary lawyers has now transformed into a robust industry but still universal acceptance without any doubt is far off and the industry has to trudge on.
Many legal outsourcers feel uncomfortable with the idea of outsourcing work to professionals they never trained, yet whose work reflects the quality of the firm.
If there is a problem then the whole issue of abdication of responsibility arises.
In-house, firms invest a lot of time and money training and managing people. Perhaps customized training in foreign laws is the last hole the Indian legal outsourcing industry needs to plug. An initiative in this regard has already been launched with the introduction of a certification test for law graduates – the Global Legal Professional test. This certification seeks to provide a standard measure of skill and knowledge for the industry in India.
Poised for growth
The Indian LPO industry is on the edge of a giant leap and to fulfil the dream of universal acceptance, legal professionals have to come forward and be diligent when joining a service provider.
They should shun any association with amateur arrangements offering legal outsourcing solutions, which can only lead to the downfall of the legal outsourcing industry. Indian lawyers can truly shape up the legal outsourcing market by ensuring quality of the highest standard and thus inspiring confidence in clients.
Kamakhya Srivastava is a lawyer with Clairvolex Knowledge Processes Pvt Ltd.
Clairvolex Knowledge Processes Pvt Ltd
3rd Floor, NDIIT Building
Kalkaji
New Delhi – 110 001, India
Tel: +91 11 2371 6565
Fax: +91 11 2371 6556
Email: mail@clairvolex.com
www.clairvolex.com
