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.
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.
posted by Mark Ross at
5:48 PM
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3 Comments:
Hi
I would like to know the list of law firms and the services they are intending to outsource
hi
i would like to know the list of law firms and outsourcing activities they are intending to do in the future
hey
nice post - was definitelly worth reading!
thanks for sharing
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