LPO Industry: The Future is Here

National Association for Software and Services Company (NASSCOM) in its report, describes Legal Process Outsourcing as “the next big thing” to happen to India, as far as the outsourcing industry is concerned. In a very recent article titled “Thought Leaders” by Reena Sengupta and Paul Solman, published by the Financial Times (London) in their 2008 annual issue of “Innovative Lawyers” states,

“The trend that is having the most impact on the thinking of the partners at top law firms is the impact of globalization and its intersection with people and technology. In particular, the way in which legal work is resourced and the location in which it gets done is coming under greater scrutiny. Outsourcing to India was the theme of many top-ranked submissions both from company legal departments and private practice”.

Approximately one-fourth of the top U.S. companies today have shown their concern on the ever mounting cost of litigation and other legal expenses that virtually takes away a large chunk of their annual corporate spending and is surely a concern on account of their profitability. It is quite obvious that they would start to look for some viable alternatives and conclude outsourcing both for their low and high end process as most cost effective without compromising for the quality of work. The difference in wages of an Indian attorney and that in U.S. and U.K. affirms this fact; an Indian attorney charges almost 80 per cent less than his U.S. or U.K. counterparts.

Several factors encouraged the growth of LPO in India. The graph of the development of LPO in India reveals a result that is overwhelming and why not? The legal system in India and the usage of English as the medium of instruction at our Law Schools, coupled with a solid Common Law background that we posses, provides an ideal knowledge and resource structure that has helped us gear for the substantial growth in the LPO spectrum. Hence with a minimal training, it has been possible for our Indian lawyers to deliver high quality legal work product. India is thus all set to complement the LPO wave.

From the Indian perspective, the legal work outsourced to India might only constitute 2 per cent of the global legal spending, which is valued at US$ 80 million. In its recent surveys Forrester Research speculates that in the coming years, the LPO market in India will see a tremendous surge of legal work that would be outsourced to the country and that may in turn generate huge job opportunity for our law graduates and this demand is slated to grow up to 35,000 job opportunities by the year 2010 and further taking it up to 79,000 opportunities by 2015.

The U.S. corporate sector holds great opportunities for the LPO of countries, like India. The need for legal advice is high and we can certainly assist them with the required back-end support. It need not be mentioned that the possibilities of this industry are immense. We have entered the era of Legal Process Outsourcing. It’s time for us to witness the change it brings in the outsourcing industry.