Bar Council of India to Visit UK

I'm over in London at the moment for the Financial Times Global Outsourcing Conference (click here for conference overview). While here, I'll be taking the opportunity to investigate the growing clamour surrounding the Bar Council of India's visit to London later this month. Unsuprisingly the everlasting Advocates Act case has been pushed back to the summer, with the next hearing scheduled for July 16. In the same way that I have a forlorn hope that Newcastle United, my beloved soccer team will one day win the English Premier league, I hope and pray that I will live to see the day that this crucial court case comes to a conclusion. I'm not sure which is more likely!

In any event I came across the following piece on legalweek.com, click here. The article provides some commentary on the Bar Council's impending trip and the growing pressure being exerted on both the Council and the India government to open the doors to foreign law firms. While I'm over here I'm hoping to pop into the Law Society's Chancery Lane offices, so I'll be keeping my ear to the ground for any further news to report.

I genuinely get the impression that the Law Society and UK government's continuous chipping away at the Bar Council of India is finally having some effect and that change could be just around the corner. As always, I'll keep my readers posted.

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Legal Outsourcing Conferences - an Addict's Critique

Last week I was extremely privileged to have been invited to speak at the Berkeley School of Law at a conference hosted by the Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. The conference, entitled International Outsourcing of the Legal Profession, was the fifth topic specific (i.e. solely devoted to the subject of offshore legal outsourcing) conference that I’ve attended over the last year. Trust me when I assure you that I have by no means attended every such event on the subject. Off the top of my head I can recollect at least four others which for a variety of reasons I declined to attend. There are probably others that have no doubt slipped my mind or that I was never aware of in the first place. However, with a myriad of legal outsourcing panel sessions now firmly tucked under my belt, I feel compelled to share with my readers some of the conclusions that I have reached on their often generic format and content.

Before embarking on my rant I genuinely want to stress that the Berkeley conference was an extremely well run, professional and interesting event. My comments that follow are by no means directed towards this specific conference. In fact I’d go as far to say that at Berkeley the content was significantly more along the lines of what I determine as being unquestionably useful for the attending delegates. Nevertheless, if the objective is to afford practical, pragmatic information, aimed at facilitating attendees’ decision-making processes, then I contend that the panel sessions’ content must now begin to move beyond the rhetoric into the operating details.

First, make no mistake about it, at all of these conferences the number of vendors will generally outweigh the number of real potential “clients”. Until the vendor market consolidates and/or the content moves beyond the basics of legal outsourcing I don’t see this situation changing. Second, without clear guidance from the conference organizers you run the risk on being on the receiving end of a blatant sales pitch. If I were a client attending such an event, I would find a sales pitch to be both amateur and a complete waste of my time. My reaction would be one of utter disdain towards the organization so obviously propounding the utilization of their own services coupled with a mild irritation at the conference organizers for allowing such a party to slip through the net. Third, and in my opinion the most frustrating, without pre-conference liaising and planning between not only the speakers on each panel but between the different panels you will inevitably suffer from duplicated material from one panel to the next.

I have listed below a small selection of panel titles (some of my own are included so no one can accuse me of not being self-critical!) that to all intents and purposes covered a lot of the same ground time after time.

Choose the Right Model for Outsourcing your Legal Services
Recognizing and Preparing for Other Important Impediments to LPO
The Fundamentals of Legal Process Outsourcing
Obstacles to Outsourcing
Impact of Outsourcing on the Legal Profession
The Ethical and Liability Risks in Outsourcing Legal Services
Dispelling the myths of legal outsourcing
Examining the Security & Privacy Risks in Legal Outsourcing
What to Look for in Choosing an LPO
Shaping the Future of Legal Outsourcing: What Every Law Firm Needs to Know

I don’t want anyone to think that I’m downplaying the importance of the above topics but it’s easy to see how “Obstacles to outsourcing” could cover the same territory as “What every law firm needs to know.” To date there have only been 4 Bar Association opinions dealing with the ethics of outsourcing legal work. There is no legislation, no case law, no precedent. We don’t need to have the conference chair person, each panel moderator and two or three separate panels covering this topic! Along the same lines, we certainly don’t need several LPO panel presentations at each and every conference called, “How to choose a provider.” These should really be renamed, “This is why you should choose us!” Choose LawScribe/Integreon/Pangea3/Mindcrest/SQ Global/SDD Global because because …..

I guess I’m at the stage now where if I hear any of the following buzz words - 70,000 attorneys qualifying annually, common law jurisdiction, New York Bar Association, English speaking workforce - one more time, I’m going to yell out, “BINGO!” Would it be beyond the realm of possibilities for different providers to plan in advance of such conferences which subjects they intend to cover?

Please feel free to comment on this blog and let me know if you disagree, but the most productive sessions that I have attended and those I vehemently believe to be of the most value involve real life, practical case studies. In these sessions you have an LPO executive and either a General or Corporate counsel or senior attorney running through step by step how they took a particular project or function offshore, how much it cost and how much it saved. By delving into the reality of an ongoing operation you minimize the necessity of extolling the theory behind how to choose a provider or the obstacles involved in outsourcing because these issues are made apparent in a practical context.

There should be a specific document review case study dealing with why the client felt compelled to go offshore in the first place, the platform used, how long it took to go live, the review and accuracy rate etc. Don’t hypothesize about the theoretical necessity to undertake a site visit when a case study can provide insight into whether this actually happened. Oftentimes during litigation one isn’t afforded the luxury of sufficient time to send a fact-finding trip to India. Another panel can deal with the offshoring of patent related support work. This should allow a deep analysis of the difficulties associated with full compliance with the Export Control regulations. I don’t mean just a couple of bullet points with the panelists umming and aahing, “Oh yes, you need to ensure compliance with the export control regulations;” – that means nothing. I have clients who have had certain technologies restricted following unsuccessful applications for export licenses. Let’s take a detailed look at the reasons why some applications succeed and others fail.

I understand that in the grand scheme of things this industry is still in its nascent stages (another buzz word). However, it is the responsibility of those of us who speak at these events and are involved in the industry both from a thought leadership and operational perspective to take the content to the next level. Having said all that I suppose it’s about time that I signed off and started preparing my presentation for my next conference on Monday – I think I’ll call it, Offshore Legal Outsourcing, the Myths, the Ethics and all that Jazz.

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International Outsourcing of the Legal Profession, The University of Berkeley School of Law

Just a brief reminder to readers about the upcoming Berkeley School of Law conference, International Outsourcing of the Legal Profession. LawScribe will be there, as will senior counsel and executives from Microsoft, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and many others. Click here for a detailed overview of the conference agenda.

To regisiter click here

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Legal Process Outsourcing News from Across the Pond

It’s been a little while since I delved into news from back home in the UK. I thought I’d provide a quick round-up of one of the more interesting reports that I’ve come across relating to the UK legal profession’s take up and perspective on offshore legal process outsourcing.

The management consultancy princeOMC, in conjunction with Legal Business released in February the results of the inaugural legal industry outsourcing survey. Over 100 senior executives at leading UK and US law firms were surveyed for the study. Once again the major driver behind the growth of the offshore legal process outsourcing industry is identified as pressure from major corporate clients being brought to bear on law firms to reduce costs. Taking into account that those respondents contributing to the survey were indeed senior executives from leading law firms, one statistic that I found to be of particular interest was that over 53% of those surveyed expect commoditized legal work to be outsourced offshore over the next 5 years. Given that this is an entirely independent survey from within the legal profession I was pleasantly surprised by the degree of acknowledgement that offshore legal outsourcing is moving up the value chain from back office support to higher value fee earning work.

Now that the Legal Service Bill is law and multi-disciplinary partnerships and law firms floating on the stock market is surely just around the corner, it would be naïve to downplay the extent of legal work that comes within the bracket of commoditized legal processes. Included in this definition in my opinion would be virtually all pre-issue of proceedings personal injury and general civil litigation work, both claimant and defendant, conveyancing, will-writing, powers of attorney, due diligence and merger and acquisition document review, company formation, legal research, insurance claims management, patent searches, trademark searches, divorce and separation agreements and the list goes on and on.

Jack Diggle, principle consultant specializing in outsourcing and offshore at princeOMC states in his overview of the report: “This spread of outsourcing into the core fee-earning activity of law firms would be a hugely significant development for the marketplace and one that challenges the very definition of what a law firm is about.” Jack, I couldn’t agree with you more.

A full copy of the princeOMC Legal Industry Outsourcing Survey in association with LB is available from www.princeomc.com/legal08.html

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Legal Outsourcing Conference Season in Full Swing

With the legal conference season clearly in full swing if ever a legal topic could be referred to as being "in vogue" then legal process outsourcing would be it.

Funnily enough it wasn't until the Jan 2007 LegalTech convention that the subject of legal outsourcing even appeared on a main stream conference agenda. ALM's May 2007 Legal Outsourcing Forum for Work Product and Support Service (what a mouthful!) witnessed the first ever legal conference dedicated solely to the issue.

Well in 2008 you can really rack up the air miles on the LPO circuit. All the major conference organizers are lining up legal outsourcing events, awash with esteemed panels featuring highly recognizable figures from major law firms, corporations and leading legal process outsourcing companies. I don't wish to disparage any of the conference organizers or cast aspersions on the merit of attending such events as clearly the industry is still in its early formative years where education of the legal profession on the subject matter is of the utmost importance. I just wonder how long these conferences will continue in their current format. Inevitably without panelists from different LPOs liaising with each other as to the content of their particular "slot" one is left with a certain amount of duplication and repetition. Having said all of that two that particularly caught my eye and that I’ll be attending or speaking at are detailed below.

On April 25th, The Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, a new research center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law is hosting a conference entitled International Outsourcing of the Legal Profession. Speakers include LawScribe’s President and CEO, Kunoor Chopra, Connie Brenton, Assistant General Counsel from Sun Microsystems together with representatives from Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems, and many others. Andrew Guzman, Professor of Law, Boalt Hall will open the conference with an overview of trends in legal outsourcing. The morning panel will focus on why some companies are outsourcing and some have stopped or have chosen not to outsource. The afternoon discussion will focus on corporate experiences with outsourcing patent drafting and patent searches. The final panel will analyze the economic implications of outsourcing highly-skilled projects, both for the U.S. economy and the legal profession overall.

I’m personally intrigued by the final panel session of the day. For a long time now I’ve been extremely interested in how legal outsourcing will impact the legal professions and the wider economies in India, the U.S. and the U.K. My own view is that the traditional law firm operating hierarchical structure is both outdated and awash with inefficiencies. In today’s fast moving, liquid, global economy, size is no guarantee of longevity. Even the largest law firms over time will struggle if they fail to adapt and modify their operational structures. Remember that over half of the Fortune 500 from 1980 no longer even exist as independent entities any more.

I’m looking forward to a trip back to the U.K. very soon. I’ve been invited to speak on the LPO panel at The Financial Times Global Outsourcing and Offshoring Conference ’Raising the Bar - Next Generation Outsourcing’ being held at the Landmark Hotel in London on May 12-13. The FT conference will explore emerging issues on the industry horizon from the frontline perspective of the global services managers, service providers and leading city analysts. Also appearing on the LPO panel will be Chris Bull, Chief Operating Officer from the internationally renowned law firm Osborne Clarke. For more information click here

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LawScribe Recognized as “Rising Star” in Global Outsourcing 100 World’s Best Outsourcing Service Providers

I generally don't use this blog as a publicity tool for LawScribe but try to cover what's happening in the LPO industry and the legal profession as a whole. For once though I'm quite unashamedly wearing my LawScribe hat and am extremely proud to bring to the attention of my blog's readership our recognition as a Rising Star in the International Association of Outsourcing Professional's (IAOP) 2008 Global Outsourcing 100. The 2008 Global Outsourcing 100 was revealed last week at this year's IAOP world summit in Orlando. We participated in a well attended and extremely interactive panel session at the summit along with Connie Brenton, Assistant General Counsel, Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Neil S. Hirshman, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis, LLP. This was the very first time that legal process outsourcing has featured on the IAOP world summit agenda and further evidence that the LPO industry is now firmly entrenched in mainstream outsourcing theory and practice.

The Global Outsourcing 100 is devoted to featuring the best of today's leading outsourcing service providers and tomorrow's rising stars. Along with its publication by IAOP, the list appears each year in FORTUNE® magazine. Companies must demonstrate excellence in categories such as size and growth, customer experience, depth and breadth of competencies, and management capabilities. I believe LawScribe is one of only two LPOs making this year's Global Outsourcing 100 list.

"Getting selected to the Global Outsourcing 100 shows these companies came out on top following a rigorous application process and unbiased competition judged by an independent panel of recognized industry leaders in outsourcing,” says Jagdish Dalal, Managing Director, Thought Leadership, IAOP and chairman of the judges' panel. “Businesses should carefully consider these outsourcing leaders named on the Global Outsourcing 100 during their selection and due diligence process."

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Outsourcing or Not Outsourcing: That is the Question

For a week or so now, ever since I came across the following piece on Law.com, I’ve been mulling over whether or not I should blog about it, but I just couldn’t hold back any longer: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202732098332

I’ve talked and written previously on how I believe firmly that 2008 will be the “tipping point” year where we witness the public embracing by the legal profession of offshore legal outsourcing as a viable strategic alternative to offer to clients. Here’s what I, and other more accomplished LPO soothsayers didn’t predict. Perhaps the first step on the path towards public acknowledgement is where law firms embark on what is to all intents and purposes offshore legal outsourcing, but where they put a different hat on it and label it a non-outsourcing initiative.

This is what has happened with the opening up of Howrey’s new office in Pune, India. Howrey’s managing partner Robert Ruyak has stated that, “It’s not outsourcing,” and that clients apparently, “don’t want to use outsourcing.” Now if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…. Well, you can see where I’m going. Now many of us lawyers if we apply our analytical legal brains to the matter may conclude that Mr Ruyak is entirely correct and that the Howrey initiative doesn’t fit the standard definition of outsourcing, the act of obtaining/purchasing services from a third party. There doesn’t appear to be any third party involved, so there’s no outsourcing going on. Case closed then, I suppose. Well perhaps not. Are we really splitting hairs here and getting just a little too preoccupied in the minutiae of the definition as opposed to the reality of the act? If we are then let’s apply the same standards to the definition of offshoring, the practice of moving business processes or services to another country, especially overseas, to reduce costs. No mention of any third party here so this would apply perfectly to the Howrey situation.

My point here is not to criticize in any way shape or form, and I genuinely applaud the firm for having both the foresight and initiative to undertake the substantial time and effort in establishing a delivery center in India, but let’s call it what it is.

I have no doubt that the firm will not be engaged in the practice of Indian law, still governed by the Advocates Act of 1961 and a forbidden fruit for any foreign law firm. It also appears that the majority of the employees in Howrey’s Pune office will not be U.S. admitted attorneys, but Indian attorneys or other individuals considered here in the States as “non-lawyers.” If both of these assumptions are correct then the considerations highlighted in the four Bar Association opinions dealing with legal process outsourcing to date are also applicable in this scenario. Only through the appropriate level of supervision can it be guaranteed that the Indian attorneys are not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. In order to discharge the overall duty of competence the supervising U.S. attorneys must be sufficiently qualified and expert in the relevant areas to be able properly to evaluate the work product coming from the firm’s Indian attorneys. If Howrey’s clients would in the ordinary course of events expect the work for which they have retained the firm to be carried out by U.S. qualified attorneys then the firm will have to obtain their clients’ prior consent before putting their Indian attorneys to work on the matter. Finally the firm will still of course have to bill their clients appropriately for the outsourced work.

Now I completely concur that elements of the supervision process, the conflict checking, etc, can be more straightforward in the Howrey model than, say, in a third party arrangement, but of course not every law firm has the resources, initiative, time or the inclination to set up their own facility offshore. I sincerely hope that more firms follow in Howrey’s footsteps as this only helps push us towards the day where utilization of the global pool of available legal talent becomes the norm rather than the exception.

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LegalTech 08 Offshore Legal Outsourcing Track Reviewed

What a week. Super Bowl Tuesday, Super Tuesday and then to top it all off, LegalTech Thursday! How much excitement can anyone take in one week?

If I was to take one thing from the Offshore Legal Outsourcing track sessions at this year’s LegalTech conference it would be the undeniable confirmation that 2008 WILL be the year that major law firms go public with their acknowledgement of offshore legal outsourcing as a viable strategic offering for their clients.

At last year’s LegalTech conference I was merely an extremely interested attendee at the outsourcing track sessions hosted by Integreon where I estimated that there were around 50 attendees in total. This year LawScribe hosted the panel sessions with well over 140 in attendance throughout the day. I don’t believe that this is necessarily any reflection on either LawScribe or Integreon but more indicative of the emergence of offshore legal outsourcing as a necessary weapon in the armory of service offerings the modern law firm must provide to their clients. Delegates at the sessions included senior executives and attorneys from many leading U.S and U.K. law firms and Fortune 500 corporations.

LawScribe’s President and CEO, Kunoor Chopra moderated the first panel of the day. The panel featured Elizabeth Foster, a partner with the San Diego law firm Luce Forward Hamilton Scripps and Joe Thorpe and Phyllis Deets from LawScribe’s new strategic partner, IQWEST. The panel addressed common questions relating to offshore outsourcing as well as examining the different legal services that are being outsourced, the benefits and drawbacks associated with outsourcing legal work, the ethical issues involved and a description of the steps necessary in locating a suitable outsourcing partner. Of particular interest to the throng of delegates was the detailed large-scale document review case study. Major law firms are now faced with the task of reviewing 10 to 20 times more information while at the same time being pressurized by their corporate clients to offer increasingly cost effective solutions. Joe Thorpe and Kunoor Chopra examined together the added-value benefit available by utilizing offshore attorneys trained in the very latest innovative, concept analysis and review hosting solutions.

In the second session of the day, hosted by yours truly, I was privileged to be joined by Chris Bull, COO of the internationally renowned U.K. law firm Osborne Clarke LLP and Yatish Srivastav, Vice President and Head of Global Business Process Outsourcing at RMS, a Citigroup company. Elizabeth Foster also sat in on the second panel sessions providing the major U.S. law firm perspective. The overriding theme of the second session was that the face of the legal profession on both sides of the Atlantic is changing. There were some differences of opinion on both the extent of the change and the time period involved. The general consensus however, was that the current modus operandi utilized by law firms of a hierarchical pyramid structure, where junior associates are billed out at increasingly inflated hourly rates for routine “legal work” cannot be sustained in the long-term. In order to survive in today’s global economy simply maintaining the status quo is not an option for the modern law firm.

I don’t intend to provide a comprehensive review of either of the day’s sessions but if any readers would like to view the materials from either panel please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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Offshore Outsourcing MCLE Ethics Webinar Audio Available

In my blog back in October I announced that we had become the first LPO to achieve accreditation by the State Bar of California to provide an MCLE Ethics seminar on the subject of Offshore Legal Outsourcing, the Ethical Implications. Over the course of the last two months we’ve presented this seminar to law firms small and large across Southern California.

I’ve now been involved in offshore legal outsourcing for 5 years, both as a UK solicitor and since joining LawScribe. Even though I am a true believer in and advocate of the benefits of legal outsourcing, I am also adamant that some within my industry gloss over the specific ethical requirements incumbent on U.S. and U.K. attorneys contemplating sending legal work overseas. The seminar covers the following crucial issues:

1. Avoiding the Unauthorized Practice of Law
2. Duty to Supervise
3. Duty of Competence
4. Preserving Client Confidences and Secrets
5. Conflicts of Interest
6. How to Bill for Outsourced Legal Support
7. Export Control Regulation Requirements

For the first time on 1/29/08 I presented our MCLE ethics course as a webinar. For those of you who are interested in hearing the audio of the webinar, or viewing the slides, I’ve now uploaded these to my blog. If you scroll down the right hand side of the page you’ll find the links. If any readers are interested in having this seminar provided in person at your firms please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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LawScribe & IQWEST Partner to Offer Complete, Cost Effective Document Review Solution

I’m delighted to advise readers of my blog that LawScribe has entered into a strategic partnership with IQWEST a global leader in the provision of award winning, document indexing, organizing and analysis technologies. Click here to read our press release.

As discovery has been extended to Electronically Stored Information (ESI), the volume of discoverable material has mushroomed. Not only do law firms have to pay increasing salaries to attract junior associates, but they are also faced with vastly increased volumes of information to review (for responsiveness, privilege, hot issues etc) over shorter and shorter time frames. This makes the types of capabilities that LawScribe and IQWEST can offer in partnership imperative to law firms and corporate legal departments involved in litigation.

Our offshore attorneys will be trained and certified on IQWEST's award winning hosting solutions. I’m confident that this partnership will assist us in providing law firms and legal departments with a one-stop solution for the most advanced and cost-effective document review available.

On February 7th at the NYC LegalTech 2008 convention IQWEST and LawScribe will be appearing on the Offshore Legal Outsourcing (OLO) track sessions together and presenting a large scale document review case study. Click here for further information on the panel sessions.

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