Now that the time has come to begin the journey towards proving legal fraternity feel good and relaxed with outsourcing support and research work to offshore locations like India. Everyone must have heard about India. But, contrary to the notions one may have, India is no longer the land of snake charmers and there are other modes of transport than elephants! As it was known-to-be in the last millennium, India is an economy powered by knowledge. There are enough Indian minds that are agile enough.
Everyone knows that over the past few years, India has become the destination for knowledge driven industries and call-centers. IT outsourcing was the first to pick up and there now exist behemoth Indian companies in that space. There is a grand range of activities getting outsourced, from call centers to animations, from payroll to architecture design. Somewhere in that spectrum lies the legal process outsourcing.
It’s not that India has become most favorite destination for legal process outsourcing, without any reason.
Talented English knowing Legal Professionals:
If we try to find the critical reasons that enable the Indians to serve low to medium complexity western legal work, we find the common law background of the country’s own legal system and that most Indians study in what are known as “English-medium” schools i.e. schools where the medium of instruction is English. And given the fact that the great Indian middle class lays an almost inordinate amount of stress on the importance of education, there are enough kids who are good and on being grown up become very competent people capable enough to provide good quality work.
Good Internet Connectivity with lower cost:
In past few years, the international bandwidth situation has improved dramatically with the launch of India's first private undersea cable. Moreover, considerable bandwidth is also available to LPOs and other service providers through Tata Group owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited-VSNL. VSNL has strategic stakes and has negotiated contracts to use parts of several international cables like SEA-ME-WE II, SEA-ME-WE III(40 GBPS capacity), FLAG (10 GBPS capacity) and SAFE (40 GBPS capacity) offering connectivity to most locations around the world. Other operators in India also have aggressive plans to build undersea cable with considerable bandwidth over the next 2-3 years. Besides, the privatization of NLD operations within India has resulted in the emergence of new players. The privatization of the telecom Industry and Foreign Investment has resulted in significant drop in telecom rates.
Everyone whether a big corporation, a law firm or a solo attorney can be a part of the growth story of legal process outsourcing. Go offshore! This doesn’t mean that one need to move to India himself but rather that one may think about having some people work for him and build his work become increasingly competitive and profitable at the same time.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Outsourcing Legal Research and Writing
As legal process outsourcing (LPO) continues to expand in market share, so too the number and type of services offered by LPOs. The various types of legal support services that can be outsourced are varied and diverse as the legal market itself. The concept of LPO being at nascent stage, most LPO providers offer a wide array of legal support services - a one window solution for all type of services. But as the industry grows further, it is expected that LPOs will differentiate themselves not only by size and capabilities, but also by what area of law or what type of services they are best suited to outsource.
Earlier, there were trend to outsource low end work like para-legal services, deposition summaries, etc. But with the growth of LPO industry many LPOs including G. P. Law Solutions have developed itself for providing high end skilled services like Legal research and writing. Legal research and writing services encompass both drafting research memorandums as well as drafting legal pleadings like trial motions, briefs in support, appellate briefs, writs, etc.
Both small law firms as well as big law firms alike can benefit from the cost and time advantages of outsourcing Legal research and writing. By taking advantage of a global work-force, they can not only save time and money but also realistically expect high quality work product.
Why Outsource Legal Research and writings?
Since Law is anything but simple and clear, legal research and writing time-consuming and difficult. A good quality effective legal research and writing requires both efficiency and thoroughness. Usually it is seen that an attorney have to research an issue number of times before he feels comfortable with the result of his research.
Legal Research also requires adequate tools including Lexis® or Westlaw® to be effective and efficient. These tools are expensive, and often they are not used frequently enough to justify the expense for many law firms.
How LPOs successfully provide high quality Legal Research services
LPOs operating from India or other offshore locations can effectively manage Legal Research and writing projects and can effectively control quality through appropriate training from the outsourcing US law firms. Due to the complex nature of the work, many a times, in first month of legal research outsourcing appropriate result may not be achieved. But, as offshore attorney develops themselves with the training provided, certainly quality product with cost and time advantage comes at place.
A robust training program for all employees of the LPO is essential. Any LPO claiming to provide high quality Legal Research and writing services must have a strong training process and a well developed curriculum for training. Many LPOs including G. P. Law Solutions have full-time trainers dedicated to training attorneys in US law. However, G. P. Law Solutions always remains open if outsourcing law firm wishes to train attorneys in their own way and demands those trained attorneys for their exclusive work.
An LPO offering Legal Research and writing services must have a work-flow process that effectively leverages technology and synthesizes the offshore team’s capabilities with that of the US team. The work-flow process must take into account the time difference between the two teams, as well as the time sensitive nature of most projects.
Checklist to evaluate an LPO’s providing Legal Research and writing Services
• Is the LPO have appropriate training program and whether they are open to further training provided by the outsourcing law firm
• Does the LPO have an easy and believable work-flow process?
• What are qualifications of their attorneys?
• Whether LPO is ready to part some of its staff exclusively for the projects of outsourcing Law firm?
• How does the LPO gather data for its research projects?
Earlier, there were trend to outsource low end work like para-legal services, deposition summaries, etc. But with the growth of LPO industry many LPOs including G. P. Law Solutions have developed itself for providing high end skilled services like Legal research and writing. Legal research and writing services encompass both drafting research memorandums as well as drafting legal pleadings like trial motions, briefs in support, appellate briefs, writs, etc.
Both small law firms as well as big law firms alike can benefit from the cost and time advantages of outsourcing Legal research and writing. By taking advantage of a global work-force, they can not only save time and money but also realistically expect high quality work product.
Why Outsource Legal Research and writings?
Since Law is anything but simple and clear, legal research and writing time-consuming and difficult. A good quality effective legal research and writing requires both efficiency and thoroughness. Usually it is seen that an attorney have to research an issue number of times before he feels comfortable with the result of his research.
Legal Research also requires adequate tools including Lexis® or Westlaw® to be effective and efficient. These tools are expensive, and often they are not used frequently enough to justify the expense for many law firms.
How LPOs successfully provide high quality Legal Research services
LPOs operating from India or other offshore locations can effectively manage Legal Research and writing projects and can effectively control quality through appropriate training from the outsourcing US law firms. Due to the complex nature of the work, many a times, in first month of legal research outsourcing appropriate result may not be achieved. But, as offshore attorney develops themselves with the training provided, certainly quality product with cost and time advantage comes at place.
A robust training program for all employees of the LPO is essential. Any LPO claiming to provide high quality Legal Research and writing services must have a strong training process and a well developed curriculum for training. Many LPOs including G. P. Law Solutions have full-time trainers dedicated to training attorneys in US law. However, G. P. Law Solutions always remains open if outsourcing law firm wishes to train attorneys in their own way and demands those trained attorneys for their exclusive work.
An LPO offering Legal Research and writing services must have a work-flow process that effectively leverages technology and synthesizes the offshore team’s capabilities with that of the US team. The work-flow process must take into account the time difference between the two teams, as well as the time sensitive nature of most projects.
Checklist to evaluate an LPO’s providing Legal Research and writing Services
• Is the LPO have appropriate training program and whether they are open to further training provided by the outsourcing law firm
• Does the LPO have an easy and believable work-flow process?
• What are qualifications of their attorneys?
• Whether LPO is ready to part some of its staff exclusively for the projects of outsourcing Law firm?
• How does the LPO gather data for its research projects?
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