The range of services processes being outsourced in the legal sector has evolved from transcription, secretarial support, voice messaging and word processing to more domain specific work typically performed by paralegals, legal assistants, and professional support lawyers. This includes contract review, drafting and management, patent research, analysis and writing, litigation support and legal research, general research and review.
Contracts that need reviewing, amendments and tracking are typical activities considered ideal for outsourcing. Further document discovery and processing; preparation of case law bibles, compilation of client/witness, attendance and interview documents are also being done offshore to support an ongoing litigation. Generic research and creation of templates and precedents and other support functions performed by support lawyers are also suitable processes for offshore outsourcing.
Key legal services currently being sourced from India may be broadly categorized into
Paralegal support, Legal support, Legal Research, Patent research and analysis, Patent application drafting and Patent prosecution.
The Bar committees of New York City, San Diego County and Los Angeles County have recently ruled that lawyers may contract with foreign lawyers not admitted to practice in any jurisdiction in the United States, or with non-lawyers outside the United States, to perform legal work for U.S. clients. Two committees of the Florida Bar also have taken notice of the practice of legal outsourcing as acceptable. The outsourcing trend is spreading and on understanding the positive aspects law firms and client are opting for legal outsourcing, for faster turnaround. In this point I would like to quote Robert Glennie, New Galexy’s founder, saying that “ the Indian company offers the same quality of legal support work for half the cost charged by top firms in London’s legal establishment,” quoted by Larry Bodine.
There is no scope for concern over whether the legal outsourcing amounts to unauthorized practice of law, when the legal service is provided under supervision of licensed attorneys in compliance with ABA guidelines on legal ethics.
