There probably isn’t a place in the world where the services of a good lawyer are inexpensive. Lawyers, legal firms and corporate houses themselves recognize this and it is perhaps the recognition of this fact which prompted them to turn to countries such as India a few years ago to outsource a large chunk of their clerical and back office work.
This outsourcing has helped both those doing the outsourcing including legal practitioners (such as lawyers and law firms) and their clients. For the former, it has meant that they can cut down on costs since they need not pay what in India would be seen as absurdly high salaries to inexperienced lawyers and support staff, and as far as clients as concerned, it has meant that the savings their lawyers make can be passed on to them thereby decreasing the fees they are required to pay.
Here in India, the advent of legal process outsourcing has resulted in the creation of an entirely new field of work for lawyers where they are comparatively well paid and do not usually have to put in the hours which would have been expected of them had they chosen to devote themselves to litigation or to careers in law firms – the only two viable and popular avenues of work which existed earlier.
And considering that there is no shortage of qualified, English-speaking lawyers who are capable of producing work of a high standard in India, outsourcing work to Indian lawyers who have been trained to do it results in the finished product being of a comparable standard to one completed abroad. In particular, being familiar with English Common Law makes outsourcing pre-litigation work to Indian lawyers a viable option for those in countries which follow the Common Law system. LPO units have therefore been asked to perform a wide variety of tasks including taking care registering of trade marks, preparing pleadings, drafting patent applications, proof-reading documents, transcribing recorded documents, analyzing and drafting documents, and handling commercial transactions. In addition to this, lawyers who work in LPO units are also involved in litigation support and research, case studies and law firm marketing. And reportedly, they do it for up to 80% less than their counterparts in countries such as the US would do it for.
All things considered, it would seem that Legal Process Outsourcing works splendidly for everyone involved. However, there are problems with the system. For one thing, unless they are properly trained, Indian lawyers would not normally have the faintest idea of the intricacies of a foreign legal system and this could quite easily adversely affect the quality of their work. And for another, it isn’t entirely clear who is liable and to what extent if a mistake is made by a lawyer working in an LPO unit. In addition to this, the question of how to maintain client confidentiality is a key issue for LPOs. Even assuming that the clients of those who outsource their work consent to their confidential information being shared with an LPO unit working on what may well be the other side of the world, there are a number of related problems.
The employees of an LPO and the clients whose information they are privy to do not share a privileged Attorney-Client relationship which means that the information which was well protected with their own lawyers would cease to be as protected once it reached an LPO. It’s not as though there is a complete absence of laws in India which deal with confidentiality. The Bar Council of India Rules, the 1872 Indian Evidence Act, the 1961 Advocates Act, and the 2000 Information Technology Act do all apply. The problem is that none of them were drafted keeping Legal Process Outsourcing and the concerns of foreign clients in mind. Under the Indian Advocates Act, for example, attorney-client privilege quite simply does not extend to foreign legal work outsourced to India. As such, it was suggested as early as 2006 that the Indian Bar Council draft a code of conduct for LPO units. It isn’t entirely clear what became of the proposal though. The American Bar Association has, however, given an opinion which lays down a framework for ethical legal outsourcing.
Issues of ethics and confidentiality aside though, the financial meltdown in the US and the recession which is currently affecting the world at large make legal process outsourcing a good option for all of those involved. Not only does it cut costs exponentially, it also enables foreign legal practitioners among others to focus on their core competencies without spending large amounts of time on clerical and other such work. And in India, the recent phenomenon of law firms opening LPO units has led to the creation of units which in some ways have ‘ready-made’ clients: the clients of the law firms they are attached to.
According to Seth and Associates, a firm located in New Delhi: India is set to achieve significant growth from its current share of 3 to 4 per cent to 6 to 7 per cent in the 250 billion dollar global market of Legal Process Outsourcing, by 2010. The key issue, however, will be sustainability. Not only will issues of confidentiality and ethics have to be resolved but for the LPO industry to flourish in the long term, it also needs to be accountable and maintain a high standard of work. “Sustainability,” as Soumitro Chatterjee, CEO of Legal Circle puts it, “will be the issue. Only those who meet the quality or standard required, will be able to survive in the market.”
(This article is by Nandita Saikia and was first published at LawMatters.in.)
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