The relevance of Offshore Legal Support Services from common law countries such as India will be difficult to ignore in the times to come. The reasons are obvious - consistent and incessant fall in Partner-Associate ratio (P:A factor). Large and medium sized law firms across the globe do look at Alternate Attorney Arrangement (AAA) as one of the effective measures to contain and maintain their billing rates. However, as more law firms rely on AAA extensively, the short supply of easily accessible, qualified domestic attorneys is fast running out. In such a situation, offshore legal support service providers, under the banner of Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO), position themselves as yet another reliable, alternate source of support services.
Off-shoring legal work to less expensive destinations like India is an attractive option, which offers unparalleled time and cost-saving advantages. With a vast pool of qualified lawyers with good English and legal drafting skills, India has emerged as the preferred destination for legal outsourcing work. As the Indian legal professionals are trained in English common law, which is the foundation of both the Indian and the US legal systems, the qualified legal professionals in India are already familiar with the broad legal framework of the common law countries.
The legal support from India has long been primarily perceived as clerical or at the most semi-legal, as service providers continued to concentrate on services such as document coding, indexing, legal transcription, and the likes. However, in the recent past there has been a substantial and accelerated shift in the Indian LPO space as knowledge driven services took the centre stage and groups of transnational legal professionals joined hands to address core legal services, such as legal research, patent related services, regulatory compliance services, document review, e-discovery and litigation support services.
The relevance of offshore legal support services, especially bulk document review, from talent-rich countries like India is clear from the glaring industry estimates. It is estimated that the cost of first level document review account for 58% to 90% of total litigation costs in the US. In litigations, huge volumes of documents - often in millions - are routinely reviewed by law firm associates, contract attorneys and paralegals. It is time consuming, exhausting and is plagued with intolerable attrition. Companies are quickly working to identify strategies to contain and reduce these costs and cost overruns. Offshore legal support service providers like Corplo Legal Outsourcing Private Limited in India have established strategic relationships with Law Firms in the US and other developed common law countries to help them effectively address such ‘cut costs’ pressures while maintaining their billing rates.
For the more conservative law firms and corporations, transitioning to an offshore legal support service provider can be a step-by-step process. To begin with, offshore service providers can be tested on a pilot (can be a previously reviewed sample data set that can provide a quantifiable approach to measure overall performance and compatibility). This can be followed up with engagement of offshore providers on a case-to-case basis under a Master Service Agreement. Each assignment brings a distinct benefit to a transitional relationship – opportunities to develop communication streams, identify and understand expectations, develop best practices, or development and management techniques – and help develop the pillars of a good relationship – Change Management, Transition and Governance.
Whenever the relationship matures, one of the most viable models for an enduring relationship is an Exclusive Offshore Legal Support Service Centre (eOLSSC) operated and managed by the Service Provider with in its fold. Such an eOLSSC would be a virtual extension of the Outsourcing Firm and the offshore development team can become an integral part of the production team of the Outsourcing Firm. The eOLSSC, among other things, would offer assured quality, security and guaranteed turnaround time during the commitment period. The constitution, strength, modalities and other matrix are worked out in detail between the Outsourcing Firm and the Offshore Service Provider.
Every serious Indian Offshore legal support service provider is now on a level playing ground, working towards creating credentials to sustain and grow as a preferred service provider. Increasing global competition and emphasis on margins from other emerging outsourcing destinations is a factor which existing Indian Service Providers will face and would have to scale up their credentials to sustain and emerge out champions in such competition.
The name of the Game is ‘survival of the best’. The growth potential of Offshore Legal Support Service industry in India is writ large on the walls. And the game is on…
