Legal Outsourcing-This Side of the Pond

Co-sourcing and LPOs

2012-01-29T05:08:00.000-08:00

Co-sourcing was once seen as an alternative to outsourcing and often argued as a better one.

Co-sourcing is getting an outside agent to do your work while production, time and quality are managed in house. When you co-source, you are still very involved in the job although not as much as if you did it yourself. Outsourcing too involves an outside agent to do the work; however once delivery and quality parameters are set, the client leaves everything to the offshore/outsourcing vendor to handle. Often where off shored back office legal work is concerned, all that remains for the attorney to do is appear in court.

Some years ago, law firms abroad preferred co sourcing to offshoring/outsourcing chiefly in order to minimize the apprehended risks of loss of confidentiality and client data. However, the recent years which proved that in India at least, the incidence of these risks has been almost nil, have to a large extent allayed these fears. The result is that the end of 2011 saw clients who had been offshoring work for some time and reaping its benefits, now wanting some more of the pie. Law firms that were outsourcing mainly legal work are now asking tentatively whether their offshore vendor can handle a niche project or billing, or maybe write some web content or develop customized software. ( There are also instances where off-shore vendors providing tech or engineering support have been asked to provide legal services.)

For obvious reasons, LPOs will oblige. However, employees in LPOs are generally lawyers. Therefore, where niche work is involved or the work is of a completely different nature from that done in-house or the project or process does not justify the expense of increasing employee count and consequent infrastructure development, the vendor will hunt for a co-sourcing sub vendor who could be either an individual/s or a small unit.

The co-sourcing unit reports directly to the off-shore vendor, and is supervised both in terms of time, production and quality by the off shore vendor’s team. However, the co-sourcing unit is never provided access to the core process or project.

For LPOs it is a win-win situation. For one, a variety of work looks good on the website. Moreover, they keep clients happy at very little cost. Last and certainly not the least, the profit margin is substantial since co sourcing saves the time and money spent on increasing employee count, administration of a large staff and the cost of maintaining infrastructure facilities for that staff.

Different LPOs deal in different types of work. The time will come when an LPO doing mainly research or discovery related work, will be approached to do back office legal work and vice versa. Will they then co -source to each other? Interesting thought.

Attrition and Contrition this Side of the Pond

2011-11-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

Greetings!
Recently I met a couple of freshers, who told me this blog had motivated them to join the LPO industry. That is good to hear but also guilt-forming since I have been neglecting writing for some time. I have also neglected to answer another blog reader, Varun Dixit an advocate practicing in the Mumbai High Courts, who wrote me saying he appreciates my blog and would like to know what to do to join an LPO in Mumbai. Varun, some earlier blog posts here will tell you all you need to join an LPO. A simple Google search will provide you with a list of LPOs in Pune and Mumbai. All of them have websites with pages where you can post your resume. After that dude, you just walk in. Let me know how it goes..

Which brings to mind attrition and small LPOs.

Every business is aware and wary of the effects of attrition. And to small firms, even a small percentage of attrition may spell doom. In India where our no-poaching laws are non existent, poaching from smaller firms by the Big Daddies is rampant. Employees in small firms have received usually received intensive, personalized training and exposure to a variety of legal work. Large multinationals offer these employees the lure of a higher salary, superb infrastructure, pick and drop services and a brand name, all of which is of course, irresistible to most young professionals.

Small firms however, can control attrition, at least to some extent, by dealing with bad managers, inequalities in salary, providing work recognition, fair appraisals ; and most important of all, maintaining free and open communication at and between all levels. This not only gives an opportunity for voicing opinions and grievances and clearing the air, but can provide insights about the way the company is functioning, and fresh ideas for growth. Most importantly it creates a sense of belonging among employees and fosters loyalty to the company which prevails when the bogey of attrition looms.

There is also reverse attrition.
In many cases, within months of working for a large company, the reality of 12- hour working days, long dreary trips in cramped cabs, the impersonal atmosphere, and the intense pressures imposed by driven managers, proves too much and many who left smaller firms long for the snug feel of a smaller office, the better hours and fewer job pressures. If these employees have been let go with no bad feeling, they want to return. That I suppose is the opposite of attrition, or may be, contrition?

Rosemary

AIBE : More Grist to the LPO Mill?

2011-03-24T04:59:00.000-07:00

The Bar Council of India has introduced the All India Bar Examination, as, among other things, a “test of an advocate’s ability to practice the profession of law in India.”

The first All India Bar Exam results are now out. 71% of the 22000 law graduates who appeared cleared the exam which effectively means there are about 16000 freshers looking for options.

Law college freshers in India have the following options:
1. Court practice.
2. Conveyancing.
3. Notary work.
4. Working with a law firm.
5. Joining a corporate office.
6. LPO firms.
Except for OPTION 6 all other options available to freshers in law require AIBE certification.

OPTION NO. 1:
Court Practice: Most law graduates dream of donning a black coat, standing up in court and “Milord-ing” it grandly. The AIBE is compulsory for those who wish to practice law AND have graduated law after 2009-2010. Therefore unless he passes the AIBE, a fresher cannot sign his name to a vakalatnama, put in an appearance in Court in any matter, or sign a legal document as a lawyer.
Whatever else the AIBE may prepare one for however, it will not prepare the fresher for court practice. Few freshers would dare breach the portals of court rooms without the reassuring coat-tail of a senior advocate to hang upon. Law courts in India are vast terrifying mazes of rooms, corridors, and crowds of advocates and litigants milling about rubbing shoulders with bored policemen dragging strings of sleazy looking under trials. It takes a year or so for most freshers just to find their way around, more to have even a single brief in hand. Many, particularly women never get over their first taste of court life.
Working for a senior advocate is the easiest way to begin court practice. Many freshers do their “junior-ship” with senior advocates and some remain “juniors” well into retirement age. Although most seniors pay a pittance and rarely allow their “juniors” to do more than perhaps file an application on their behalf in court or occasionally argue minor matters but with the senior aging, juniors often manage a decent practice although still under the senior’s umbrella.

OPTION 2:
Conveyance Practice:
In the last decade, many wise lawyers have concentrated solely on conveyance law. Drafting property sales and lease documents, registering deeds, is always a very lucrative occupation no matter what the state of the estate market.

OPTION 3:
Notaries:
Some lawyers manage to wangle a notary license which believe me, requires a lot of political clout. A license to notarize allows lawyers to sell court fee stamps and to stamp and notarize documents for a fee. These lawyers may of course continue a court practice but that often means they lose out on clients who need their notarization services and many prefer to concentrate on just being notaries, which after all guarantees a sure fee.

OPTION 4:

Law firms and corporate offices:
Many bright freshers who are unable to stomach the heat and dust of Indian courts prefer the sophisticated ambience of corporate offices or law firms. Few of them will ever see the inside of a court room, working as they do mainly in the back offices but corporates pay well.

OPTION 5:
LPOS:
The wisest are those who join legal process outsourcing companies. (LPOs) All you need is a law degree. No appearing or waiting for an AIBE certificate. Moreover, most LPOs do not mind their employees practicing in Courts as well. Many LPO employees have their “sanads” (license to practice in Court) practicing as and when time permits thus having their cake and eating it too.

My earlier posts have discussed the type of work you can do in an LPO and what else you need to get into an LPO

Indian LPOs and the Banyan Tree

2011-02-25T02:17:00.000-08:00

Like the banyan tree in India, that does not grow to a great height but puts down roots any which way, expanding its girth endlessly, legal process outsourcing is putting out roots in the most unexpected places and spreading as wide.

Most LPOs offer document reviews legal research and back office work. Most LPOs in Pune, where, if I say so myself, the most talented lawyers roost, do almost all court-related document work for foreign law firms. Inevitably attorneys abroad having experienced the bliss of being free of the drudgery of endless form-filling , repetitive correspondence, data and records maintenance, carrying out background research, and at the same time saving massively on overheads, have passed on that bliss to associated industries like health and insurance sectors.

LPOs now offer law firms the latest technological services, medico-legal services, related insurance and voice- calling services, in addition to the purely legal work they do.
Every new technological development brings on some added service that can be provided to the client.

One very telling example of this is a service provided by Paul C Easton .

Mr. Easton offers to law firms, a 3^rd party web-page capture/report/seal service. What this simply means is that the LPO seizes upon a page-proof tech processes, with the intention of preserving it as evidence in a pending or anticipated court trial. (I found it diabolically clever.Reminded me of Perry Mason who was a lawyer but behaved like a detective, snooping around, collecting evidence and flourishing it in court, to the consternation of the prosecution.)

Similar would be the consternation of a claimant in a BI case who having claimed that he cannot play tennis as he used to because of the injuries sustained in the accident, is then presented with an authenticated web-page(possibly his blog page or an update he had put on a social website), where he merrily claims: “Had a good game at the tennis club. The drinks suck, though.”

Almost half of his claim flies out of the window. Faced with such incontrovertible evidence he might decide to settle the matter out of court. Even if he doesn't the insurance company still stands to gain. Of course, the service would work both ways.

Apart from the savings to law firms resulting from out-of-court settlements, litigation expenses are further reduced because the profits are in dollars whereas the outsourced service is paid for in rupees. I do see other Indian LPOs offering this and other even more innovative services, that will inevitably come into existence the more we start clouding.

2011-01-25T22:02:00.000-08:00

10 Steps to an easy crossing to -This Side of the Pond:

(Inspired by Thomas Kennedy’s post on effectively managing and leading global and virtual project teams.)

1. Don ’t worry so much about working with us. We have centuries of experience dealing with foreigners. Persians, Turks, Romans, Arabs, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, British, French; they’ve all been here, had fun, made lots of money. So will you. And this time around, so will we.

2. You find our accents terrible. We understand. We find some of our regional and non-metro accents somewhat “difficult” too. Indeed, some of our accents are so strong, that no amount of emerying by the best convent schools can get rid of them. (We suggest that if a task doesn’t need speaking why insist on vendors speaking accent-less English?)

Incidentally, we find some of your accents and slang incomprehensible too. So, do speak slowly and follow up with a written communication which will ensure that everyone concerned is on the same page.

3. As mysterious as a “lassi” is, to many of you, Budweisers are to us. When you refer to Big Nick- we may not realize that you’re referring to a burger joint and not to a person. And when you say Snocat, surely you mean a leopard in the Himalayas? If you’re talking about something peculiar to your country, many of us may never have heard of it so don’t leave us to guess what it is. Make it a point to explain what you’re talking about.

4. We turn our nights into days for you. But dawn can be a killing time. Literally. Try to wind up before 3 a.m. (OUR time)

5. If you’re not tech savvy just say so at the beginning. We’ll hold your hand and lead you through. Do not wait, hoping for enlightenment until we’re well into our spiel and THEN say you’re not.

6. A sense of humor is not our strong point, and on conference calls particularly, we may not realize that you’re kidding. So if you do happen to be in a funny mood, make sure everyone is laughing.

7. Do not mention underwear, yours or anyone else’s when in a conversation with Indian colleagues. Just don’t. And don’t say you don’t. You do.

8. Indians irrespective of religion, tribe and caste, think it extremely bad mannered to eat without inviting anyone around, guest, stranger or servant, to eat too. Do not bite into that sandwich without asking your Indian colleague whether he’d like some. Rest assured, you will not have to share your meal. Every Indian knows that such invitations are just ‘observing the niceties’ and would never dream of accepting, no matter how hungry they are.

9. We love long complicated ceremonies, getting married takes us weeks, we have dozens of festivals. Get clarity on which holidays are absolutely indispensable to this side of the pond and which are not, in the beginning of the year itself. Just so you can manage timelines efficiently.

10. We know all the 4-letter words and use them too. But it’d be nice not to see them in mails even if they’re not meant for anyone in particular.

Hey, even if you don’t follow any of the above, you’ll still have a wonderful crossing. Enjoy!

Of Small and Big Fishes in this Pond

2010-12-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

   A year or so ago, this blog had predicted that at some point, the smaller outsourcing firms will be swallowed by the bigger giants. And sure enough, here come the giants! Pangea3 was acquired last month by Thomson Reuters and the buzz is that there are several more large MNCs putting out feelers looking to acquire small working LPOs with a working staff of at least 50.
   Despite tax sanctions and outsourcing restrictive measures that the US administration has in place, legal outsourcing has grown. Not perhaps the meteoric growth predicted by business gurus, but the scope and variety of the processes outsourced is amazing.
   But are all small LPOs, ready to be taken over? Are they like our traditional Indian brides waiting hopefully, pretending to act coy, yet in reality eager to be acquired?
   That I suppose depends much on what the firm sees its future to be. Cost considerations would be a major factor in taking the decision to merge with a larger firm. Even if the LPO is doing fairly well, the expense in maintaining the huge staff and infrastructure that is required for big document review projects, is considerable. Moreover, such projects especially large ones may not be as forthcoming as one would like them to be. While the firm may have lots of work, often it is not enough to justify holding on to the extensive staff and premises, required for carrying out larger document review projects. Firms handling only legal processes do not require large staff or impressive infrastructure which sounds good, but their climb up the financial ladder is slower. Document review projects are the ones that really bring home the dough!
   When the LPO tide came in, several small LPOs sprang up with the sole intention of cashing in on the latest LPO craze. Most are now defunct. The few that have survived are the ones who did not hesitate to take on any sort of work that came their way. While some feel accepting any and every type of work dished out by law firms abroad, is not the right way to go about business, many start-ups prefer to knuckle down and accept whatever is offered merely in order to stay afloat and live to fight another day.
   Personally, I think it’s better to have any kind of work than no work at all. Besides one never knows where a seemingly small project might lead to. One start up LPO in Pune that was affiliated to a large IT company was asked by a US law firm to design its website. It agreed very reluctantly but the decision proved a wise one because the law firm eventually became its biggest client.
   Generally speaking, the outsourcing service provider with a strong IT team that can provide tech support and a production team that is not chary of multi-tasking and not afraid to take on work, even work that might be somewhat out of their scope, is on pretty strong ground. But where legal process outsourcing is concerned, LPOs find it difficult to get their legal staff to cooperate on processes that do not exactly involve “legal” work. Most Indian lawyers come with a chip on their shoulder. Freshers particularly, the ink on their degree certificates not dry yet, are quite determined to do only “real” legal work. That most of them ultimately prove woefully inadequate to do it, is another story.
   It is definitely not economically viable for the small LPO to hire separate non-legal staff to do the non-legal work, just to humor its legal employees. The Indian lawyer who wishes to enter the legal outsourcing field would do well to learn to multi-task and do the work on hand rather than take the high road. Once the small firm finds success, then whether it decides to be a small fish in a big pond or vice versa, it’s going to be a win-win situation for not only its owners but also its employees.

"All for want of a horseshoe nail...."

2010-09-17T04:49:00.000-07:00

Sanjay Bhatia of SDD Global forwarded me his article"How to start your own LPO.. listing a number of essentials for a successful LPO. Thank you Mr. Bhatia.

To my mind, the lifeblood of any startup is a good healthy count of clients. The more the better, because no matter how much work a single foreign law firm or client can send you, it can never be enough to maintain an LPO full time. Therefore, the more the clients, the lesser the likelihood of a start up shutting down or having to lay off staff because of the loss of a client or two.

And to build up a healthy client count what is needed is first is a team of excellent lawyers this side of the pond to provide legal services, cleanly and promptly. And second a dynamic sales team.

Just as justice must not only be done but must manifestly be seen to be done, so also a start -up must needs flaunt its ability to deliver the goods and I agree with Mr. Bhatia that merely having a well designed website and adequate infrastructure is not enough.

SHOULD THE SALES TEAM CONSIST OF LAWYERS ONLY?

Speaking from the point of view of start ups, the team need not necessarily be lawyers; but, yes, it must most certainly have lawyers on the sales team to convince the client that the company can handle the work.

It is also vital that these salesmen-lawyers not only know have a thorough knowledge of the subjective law, but must also have excellent communication skills. Displaying an eager to please attitude may flatter the client and bring some initial work to the start up, but the glow will not last long.

Moreover, the type of work that the firm can snag -whether simple basic work like data entry or more high end work like legal research or legal drafting which is regarded as more high end, will depend on how much at ease this salesman-lawyer is with discussing the finer points of patent laws, thresholds, motions , Section 8, et al.

An unsure and faltering salesman-lawyer will bring in only the lowest end work and while work is after all work, if the start-up wants to outgrow its start-up status, it must be able to land the better projects/processes.

Sanjay Bhatia pleads his case, arguing that, "Having a mix of exceptional Indian and Western attorneys, in a ratio of 10:1 or lower is almost certain to put your LPO on the road to success. "

Seriously, if an LPO can afford to have foreign attorneys working for it in that ratio, it is already a success.
However, I do agree that an LPO must have at least a couple of persons on the sales team whether they be a part of management or not, to wade into those foreign seas and fish for clients.

While having a western attorney on board can never be a disadvantage it is definitely a rather expensive plus that few start ups can afford to indulge in. In the interests of preserving attorney-client privilege and protecting confidentiality , yes a foreign attorney is an asset, but this job can well be, and indeed often is performed by an attorney working with the law firm that outsources the work.

THE MISPLACED COMMA:

Where I agree most whole-heartedly with Sanjay Bhatia is when he says, " In short, the fastest way for an LPO to fail is to hire staff with sub-par writing skills. "

I know managers who believe that hiring one or two supervisors to correct shoddy work is sufficient to ensure quality. This is a complete misconception. The importance of having a team of lawyers with good command of the English language can never be under emphasized. And Mr. Bhatia is right when he opines that while many Indian lawyers grasp legal concepts and understand foreign law perfectly, it is very, very difficult to find lawyers who can grasp the importance of that “misplaced comma.”

Like the proverbial horse that lost its nail, much may be lost for want of a comma.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Rosemary

Indians teach English to US attorneys

2010-08-06T05:01:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the Times of India, titled- Indians Teach English to US Attorneys inspired this post. The article talks of Indian lawyers correcting grammatical and other errors in legal documents drafted by US attorneys. This is really not as unbelievable as it might appear. In the course of the work that I do for US law firms, I have found quite a few attorneys displaying poor spellings and grammar. Instances like, “absents of the plaintiff,” “it is not expectable” and “forgive the incontinence” (inconvenience) do, I think, prove my point. Nevertheless, the number of Indian lawyers who can boast of possessing impeccable English is still very small.

Managing the legal work done in the LPO firm that I work for, I see that within a short span of a year and a half, the legal work outsourced to us by foreign law firms, both quantity and variety, has grown in leaps and bounds. Since my firm deals mainly in documents, this does seem a fair indication that the newer breed of Indian lawyers is rapidly gaining proficiency in English.

Very often, prospective LPO employees express concern that they may not qualify to work in LPO firms because of their poor English. To them I say, take heart. LPO firms generally deal with different types of legal work, and somewhere you are bound to suit.

There are a few firms that handle only project work like document reviews; and there are a few which work as back offices for law firms in the US and UK, and which handle mainly process work. And there are the enviable ones that do all types of work.

Legal process outsourcing includes handling practically all the back-office jobs of a US/UK law firm. Right from entering case and client data, sending letters to involved parties, drafting summons and complaints, arbitration requests, deposition transcriptions, responses and motions.

While both types require a decent knowledge of English, there is no way you can work in a firm handling legal processes without knowing the language well. Moreover, while some firms doing project work may not even require employees to have a law degree, this is not the case with firms handling legal processes. In order to be able to draft legal documents, one needs legal knowledge and every employee in such an LPO firm must therefore have a law degree. While the actual statutes differ from country to country the basic tenets of law remain the same; and as I have said here before, some aggressive training in foreign laws quickly brings the Indian lawyer up to date with foreign law.

Another major difference in legal project and legal process work is that most legal projects come with a time limit. If the company does not have another project on hand where your services are required, you are out. On the other hand legal process work is a continuous stream of work. This is a point that will need consideration when you're wondering which LPO firm to apply for a job.

Before signing off, I should mention that to my concern, I have found that so far as knowledge of the English language in Maharashtra is concerned, except for metros like Mumbai and Pune, the rest of Maharashtra is a disaster. Lawyers from areas in Bihar, UP and MP, who were heretofore considered “backward” so far as their knowledge of the English language was concerned, fare better than those from Maharashtra.

My fellow Maharashtrian lawyers, you do well to learn and preserve our mother tongue, but if you want to progress vertically and not have your options to work limited to municipal and local courts, it would behoove you to learn the global language.

Rosemary

Is your Management poisoning your Company

2010-04-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

A blog some months ago had a post by someone who had recently been handed the pink slip. He was ranting about the Managers responsible for his termination. The post was tailed by several comments posted from other employees who at different times had been removed by the same Managers. The organization shut down recently and while that may or may not be related to management glitches but it is worth a think.

The worth of any organization, large or small, is always the sum total of the worth of its individual members and particularly its leaders. A bad leader is a pain but a toxic leader is poison.

A large organization may host a dozen toxic leaders and not notice the difference for a while until it gets caught up in frauds, malpractices, employee harassment suits and the like.

But the smaller the organization the more significant is the presence of a toxic leader because even one can lead to its disintegration in a very short while.

Toxic leadership is indeed very common even in large well run institutions like the Army or the Church and even there, is difficult to eradicate.

What is toxic leadership and why is it so difficult to spot and remove a toxic leader particularly in organizations which are people oriented?

Marcia Whicker defines a toxic leader as a leader who is “maladjusted, malcontent, and often malevolent, even malicious.” Every leader, good or bad, is a person with vision but a toxic leader has a vision for self rather than the organization. Such a leader will seek to rise above the team rather than with the team. Such a leader is successful but the toxic leader’s success is not the company’s success and more often achieved by clawing the company’s back.

Toxic leadership is the more difficult to spot because at first look such leaders come across as intelligent and very performance oriented. They project an attitude of confidence. On the job, they are often to be seen ordering, commanding, rushing around, their reprimands, praises, communications very public and visible; and their presence very much felt. They may not always be loud though. A toxic leader may be soft spoken and quiet too. But loud or not toxic leaders display a common characteristic. With the boss they are compliant. A toxic leader will never argue with the boss. They are the “yes bossers”, the essential “babus” the ones who are always assuring the boss “the job will be done.”

And indeed initially the job is done. The toxic leader will deliver value by making sure there are enough intelligent, performing people on the team to provide value. If there are mistakes, there will be elaborate cover ups and scapegoats firmly in place.

But any value provided by such leaders will be strictly short term. In the long term toxic leaders do not add value to the organizations even if the unit performs successfully under them.

This is because toxic leaders succeed by tearing others down. They are fiercely protective of their territory and will go to any extent to stop anyone encroaching on what they see as their turf. They are completely in control of their team but they rule by intimidating rather than uplifting. The most lethal characteristic of a toxic leader is the tendency by the leader to weed out more intelligent members of the team.

A toxic leader is always wary of anyone who is smarter and will immediately remove anyone who could be a threat. Such a leader is intelligent enough to be able to pick out the persons on his team who although capable, have low levels of confidence and esteem and are prepared to work without threatening the leader’s position. If any member of the unit threatens to overshadow the leader, there will be no hesitation in using any weapons, even a resort to criminal practices in an attempt to eliminate the member.

This is the chief reason why such leaders cause the downfall of the organization they serve. At some point the performing unit members will wake up to the reality, that there is no scope for them to grow. There is always a higher rate of attrition in an organization, with such a leader. Moreover, toxic leaders in the long run do not engender the level of confidence in their team that is necessary to lead to an esprit de corps. The team becomes dysfunctional because the members will seek every excuse to escape either out of the team or if that is not possible out of the organization itself.

An organization would do well to be on the watch for tell tale signs which betray the presence of a toxic leader-a general sense of dissatisfaction among the team members, a tendency for the more intelligent to leave the organization, a reluctance among the team members to speak out freely, signs of fear. The best way to spot toxic leadership is to get the team assessed by an independent manager. Invariably the team members whose qualities have been played down by the toxic leader will turn up trumps.

However, despite spotting one, companies very often find it difficult to remove such a leader, usually because such leaders are spotted too late and by then have so much influence and control over their teams that it is hard to break the bond. Such a leader often engenders with his team one of two states of relationship-one where the team consists of entirely sub standard employees who know they will survive only under the aegis of their leader and the other where there has developed a poisonous bond between the leader and the follower- a bond which the followers their spirit too long broken- lack the courage to break.

(Until next time,then and hoping to post more often. Also just noticed the new followers. Welcome.)

Medical Insurance in India

2010-02-20T06:31:00.001-08:00

The Central Mumbai District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum recently directed the Oriental Insurance Company to pay Rs. 64223/- that had been deducted from the hospital reimbursements made by it. The refusal to pay was based on the fact that the amounts for which reimbursement was claimed -the fees charged by the surgeon, the anesthetist and the operation theater; together with Rs.293/ -charged for cologne, blade and a blanket -were “too high. The company claimed that their policy promised to reimburse only “reasonable customary and necessary” expenses. Held that the company had not proved that the fees charged by the hospital were not reasonable, customary and necessary.

In India, mere production of the hospital bills is usually proof sufficient that the insured had incurred that expense.

It is completely plausible that the fees charged by the subject doctors, may have been excessive. In India, in a single area it is common to find different facilities charging varying amounts for similar services. An ultrasound test can cost anywhere between a few hundreds to thousands, or is even free. A specialist in nuclear medicine, a friend of mine, who I visited for a medical check up, asked me if I had insurance coverage. If so, he said, I should go ahead and perform a few tests, but if not, no need, because they were really quite expensive and unnecessary. In the cities, if the patient has medical insurance, he is invariably subjected to a battery of tests and spends weeks admitted in the hospital, after which he is generally recommended treatments which would not have been done, if he was not covered.

To prevent arbitrary charging of fees for medical services, we should, like the US, design CPT Codes. CPT (current procedural terminology) codes are numbers given for different types of medical services and supplies provide all over the country. What this means to the US citizen is that the insurer is going to reimburse the treatment provided under that code at a fixed rate. This generally results in physicians and medical providers restricting their fees to the amounts prescribed under the CPT codes. Similar coding procedures in India, with variations for rural and urban areas; would, at the least, prevent overcharging for services rendered, although it would not prevent hospitals and doctors from prescribing unnecessary treatments and providing medical supplies even for very minor complaints merely to collect insurance benefits, which is what happens in the US. In the US, insurance companies do not squeal “overcharged”, they scream “lack of medical necessity.”

Insurance law in the US is very highly developed and the processes extremely sophisticated and streamlined. Both providing insurance and claiming it, is seriously, big business. Medical treatment is usually provided by companies formed by physicians and providers who get the patient to assign insurance benefits in their favor. These companies then send in their claims to the insurer and hire law firms to sue the insurer, if the claims are not paid.

In India, insurance law has a long way to go. Here, insurance cover is mainly taken by people in bigger cities and metros. Insurance companies still project themselves as benign entities aiming to protect the innocent consumer. However, it will not be long before the real face of insurance emerges-that of a giant Midas, whose ‘protective’ touch turns everything into money.

Indian Law- Business or Profession?

2009-12-22T03:20:00.000-08:00

Knee deep in recruitments, I find that all applicants without exception are senior practicing lawyers some with a practice of 20+ years. Irony. Because these are the very same people who had declared that working for a legal process outsourcing company is not the “real” practice of law ; that lawyers working for legal outsourcing companies were not “real lawyers;” that outsourcing is stripping the profession of its nobility. However, this dramatic change in attitudes is not surprising. It was just a matter of time before lawyers woke up to the fact that the practice of law in India had long ceased to be a profession and that just like any other business, law too was a business,the processes of which could be successfully outsourced. Neither globalization nor outsourcing can be blamed for this change in the face of Indian law from profession to business, which occurred long before outsourcing came on the scene.

In the early 20^th century and immediately post-Independence, the practice of law in India was as noble a profession as that of a priest. 50 years post-Independence, that changed. There was bred a whole generation of literate youngsters spoiled for a choice of profession. With the educational system in India giving seats in medicine, engineering and management strictly on the basis of grades, those who could not make it, turned perforce to law. Consequently courts teemed with young lawyers and in the resulting competition the nobility of law took a toss. (In the clawing climb to success, ideals tumble fast.)

One reason for so many Indian lawyers, even senior ones, opting now to work in LPOs, is because nowhere is corruption as rife as in our courts. No one with dreams of idealism and nobility can last long in the legal system. The last decade did see stringent measures taken against corrupt public servants and although matters have improved vastly, it is not yet completely clean. The judiciary has a handful of judges who are really, truly dedicated. Unfortunately, in our bureaucratic system virtue is rarely rewarded. Many of these “good” ones are often passed over for promotions and never make it beyond the district level and retire in bitter frustration. How long can one regard a profession which dances to the rustle of rupees as noble?

Another reason for the sudden influx is the current economic situation. While India is not facing the same degree of recession as the west, the spending on litigation is far less than before. Potential litigants prefer to settle matters out of court rather than "feed" lawyers.

Legal process outsourcing has come to Indian lawyers as manna from heaven. It is, if you are qualified, easy money. Many of us are as familiar with foreign lifestyles, movies, music and art as we are with our own. Even more so. Some of the younger lawyers I interviewed were completely familiar with foreign law-they could tell me about US patents relating to animal euthanasia; all about US no -fault litigation and bankruptcy practices- but had no idea whether we had any similar provisions in India.

There are those who argue that LPOs will change the face of Indian law; that our judiciary will languish for want of good lawyers and judges. I doubt it. Life has a way of balancing things out. Not everyone is cut out for practicing foreign law which is essentially desk practice. I believe that more lawyers working in LPOs will mean that those practicing in courts will get more elbow room to grow, hopefully, into better practicing lawyers and in turn make for a stronger judiciary. Then maybe, our traditional practice of law will return to its past noble state. For now, law is a business and I am, as they say, cool with it.

Quality in LPOs

2009-11-19T07:06:00.001-08:00

Greetings,

Having read a lot about the concern about quality deficient work that would result from outsourcing work to India and elsewhere, I am convinced that that is one hurdle that can, and has been, easily overcome.

Training young lawyers in an LPO firm, I was amazed to find that they knew more about US and UK laws than the laws in India. They could tell me about euthanasia provisions for animals in the UK but had no idea if similar provisions existed in India. They knew all about insurance law in the US, but asked if we have anything like this here, they were unsure. This will be the trend henceforth if globalization and outsourcing legal jobs goes as predicted. Indian lawyers, especially the fresh graduates will have a degree in Indian law and be practicing US and UK law.

Having seen work done by young lawyers in the US and similar work done by Indian lawyers here, the mistakes that young trainee solicitors make both sides of the pond are similar. Here as there, they need proper training and strict supervision, at least initially. Having tried that in an LPO here, I can vouch that provided with both, Indian lawyers are performing as well and in some cases better than their US counterparts.

What is really dampening is that where both US and Indian lawyers happen to be working on the same matter, the US lawyer automatically assumes that any error in the case is the work of the India team. Maybe he has reason. But what is worse is that the Indian team is quite willing to assume that somehow it must be their fault. This, I think, is the effect of years of British rule which has left us with a definite inferiority complex.

It took some time and a lot of training to build up enough confidence in employees so they would finally be able to say, “Hey look, you’re doing it wrong. This is the way to do it.” Fortunately outsourcing law firms are businessmen first and foremost. If the work is good, they do not have a chip on the shoulder admitting that it is good and paying for it.

There are some concerns expressed abroad that their trainee lawyers, might not have any work to train on if it was being outsourced. A similar concern is expressed by the Indian judiciary which is worried about young legal talent being absorbed into LPOs and the Indian Judiciary which is already famishing for lack of good judges regressing still further. (LPOs are not the reason we do not have good Indian judges, but that is another story. )

In my opinion, these concerns are insubstantial. First of all, not all legal work is going to be outsourced. Second, most of the work is going to be back office work. Thirdly, in India at least, only those lawyers join LPOs who realize that they do not have the required canniness which is absolutely necessary, and indeed the only perquisite, for practicing in Indian courts.

And anyway, the world, as we all know by now, is flat and there is nothing to stop us all from moving where the money is, without falling off it.

Swine flu in the LPO

2009-10-20T04:21:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

In India, the H1N1 epidemic continues with it being twice as bad here as in the rest of the world with the infection being viciously rampant in my city-Pune . Almost all the deaths due to the flu occurred in Pune. To date we have a death a day, total toll from August 2009, when the first death occurred, being 82.Considering that Pune has a population of approximately 50 lacs which is spread over an area of 450 sq.kms, it was a difficult task to control the flu; and while city schools and colleges were shut down, commercial establishments and offices continued to function and deal with the epidemic any which way they could.

This post is inspired by an interesting post on the legal and workplace implications of H1N1 which went on to speak of the challenges faced by employers in dealing with swine flu and how to deal with them.

The article referred above spoke of the legal affects of swine flu and how to deal with it in the workplace. Here's a tongue-in-cheek, albeit very truthful look at what we did in office to combat the infection:

1. For a week or so everyone came in with masks. A few wrapped their faces in scarves. This however, made communication impossible and so the masks and scarves came to be gradually discarded during the course of the day.(Pic courtesy @devakishor on Twitter)

2. Anyone with a cold refused to attend work. Sometimes even someone who sneezed more than thrice pleaded social responsibility and went home.

3. At regular intervals the air conditioning was turned off and windows and doors opened to let in sunlight and fresh air which hopefully would destroy any lurking germs.

4. Someone heard that eucalyptus oil helped prevent H1N1 and one 50 ml bottle of oil was brought in by the office, which was rapidly emptied by the end of the same day and never replaced.

5. The drug store opposite made a few thousands selling eucalyptus oil tablets, to which I, who anyway had a predilection for the oil, have now got addicted to.

6. The only pregnant staffer was segregated but whether it was as a precaution against swine flu or because she no longer fit into the cubicle, I am not very sure.

7. After a while everyone decided what the hell, if it was going to happen it would happen and stopped all pretense at precautions.

TO BE NOTED is that almost everyone in the office at some point suffered from sore throats, cold sand cough during this period. This includes me who never gets a cold. This is in itself unusual. My theory is that everyone must have suffered a mild form of swine flu and recovered which means we all are now immune.

Hurrah.

Pins in Underwear & Quality Set-Ups Part II

2009-10-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

To continue with the previous post.

One way a small firm can save on costs is to hire cheap at production level. and splurge at the higher level, praying that good management will control quality. But this does not work. At least not for long. Good project managers are not necessarily good at providing quality work. Nor should project management be expected to deal with quality assurance.

To ensure quality deliverables the firm must have a good quality set- up in place. Introducing quality set- ups in small firms which have never heard of them before is like taking a toddler to the dentist for the first time. She doesn't know what she's in for and eagerly toddles along, so the introduction is not too bad. But the next time you want to her to toddle, she tears your hair out.

The first step in introducing quality procedures is to introduce the team to the concept of "errors".

The reason errors occur is that at production level, the team is often not aware what exactly is the error they are alleged to be making. The client's mails listing mistakes, are sheer babble. (What is she talking about? What error? Isn't that just what we did?)

Asking a direct question therefore: What is an error- draws a blank. Yet in order for the quality procedures to be put in place, this first step of getting the team to recognize what is an error for that particular process, is vital.

This can be solved by getting the team to relate what part of the process seems to them to be the trickiest. Remember, it is always at that part of the task that one finds the most difficult that one is likely to make the most mistakes.

In one instance while applying this strategy, I realized that the team was not really aware of what the process was all about. They were merely performing the tasks told like automatons without the faintest idea of why they were doing it.

An explanation of the whys and wherefores of client requirements serves to bring the team to an understanding of why a particular document needs to be done in a particular manner.

Once the team sees the reason and logic in the work they are engaged in, they can then see for themselves what the client means when she cries "error".

And so thus, the first step in introducing a quality set up- defining an error is taken. For the rest, wait for my next post.

In parting. As I always say a knowledge of the English language is essential if you are going to work on US or UK legal documents. Recently an EBT submitted (deposition) in a personal injury case, read: She cannot put pins in her underwear.

Pins in underwear. Why would anyone put pins in underwear? Do American women now put pins in underwear the way Indians used to pin purses into their underwear to deter thieves?

A little investigation revealed all.
The EBT should have read: She cannot put pants on, her underwear.

Yeah, even legal outsourcing has its lighter moments.

Startups and Quality Set-Ups. Part I

2009-09-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

Despite recession swamping the globe the legal process outsourcing industry exulted. LPO gurus both sides of the pond confidently predicted that the industry would flourish.

With several LPOs in the city which had apparently been doing well downing shutters precipitately within six months of that prediction, and even the larger companies- the multi-storeyed, shiny KPOs and BPOs which had wasted no time joining the mad LPO boom, still struggling to establish their legal outsourcing units, one is left looking for the reason why.

The main reason seems to be that our once- magnanimous American attorney, now in the unfamiliar position of having to economize like any rural Indian housewife, when he seeks to outsource, is looking for two things and two things only -cost savings and quality.

Time was when confidentiality was a major issue and the subject of much discussion in the US legal fraternity but in India at least, this is no longer a concern.

So we have here the client who wants to pay the least but expects the best. Unfair? No.

The Indian market is seething with LPOs, and who can blame Big Daddy for wanting to shop for bargains? Here is where the smaller LPOs have a distinct advantage over their richer cousins-the larger companies. Small firms spend far less on infrastructure and facilities . They operate on bare bones infrastructure and hire freshers who work for a pittance. They can afford to quote ridiculously low prices .

But this has its flip side too. Consistently hiring cheap labor results in deliverables that are of poor quality and ultimately the client goes elsewhere.

How to save on costs and yet deliver work of the highest quality is a dilemma all firms-big and small- face. How to deal with I shall leave for my next post.

For now, suffice it to say that the LPOs that will flourish will be the ones that can deliver real value. And real value in every case would be work of the highest quality, within the given time and cost parameters, and with confidentiality as a bonus.

See you soon.

Rosemary

Sala Main To Sahab Ban Gayaa.

2009-08-25T06:59:00.000-07:00

If this side of the pond ponders Indian lawyers in danger of turning into clerks, the other side sees US and UK attorneys metamorphosing into top management honchos overnight.

The fear of recession even before the bogey actually arrived, led to large scale layoffs and downsizing of law firms particularly in the US. As predicted, legal process outsourcing itself apart from a slight hiccup in the early part of 2009 saw a smart pickup in the second half of the year.

With the ABA mandating strict legal supervision on all legal work that is outsourced, many LPOs set up in India have begun hiring US attorneys not only to satisfy compliance with due diligence procedures but also to increase the comfort levels of their clients. The salaries paid to these attorneys are invariably twice and thrice what an Indian lawyer is paid for the same job.

The result is that US and UK attorneys who would never otherwise have dreamed of visiting the Orient are making a beeline for India and China and happily playing leading roles in LPOs. At home, they would probably still be struggling juniors, serving summonses and recording EBTs. Here, they manage large teams of Indian lawyers and head ambitious projects. Their salaries may not be as high as what they might have earned in the US even at the lowest rung of their careers, but the lower cost of living both in India and China more than makes up for that. Furthermore, LPOs in India are based in metros where the standard of living can be even more lavish than abroad, what with malls, multiplexes, and in-house help for every chore.

LPOS here may not really need foreign attorneys, particularly those with experienced legal professionals on board. While a JD brings to the firm a deep and close knowledge of the law of his/her land; the basic concepts of law are the same in every corner of the civilized world and US and UK legal provisions and procedural laws, or at least as much of those that are needed to work on legal projects, can be easily imbibed by some focused study on the net. FindLaw.com. and other law sites on every aspect of the law, in every state, are easily available online. Bluebooking skills are not difficult for an intelligent, skilled professional.

Many Indian lawyers fear that having foreign attorneys working here is going to affect their own chances. If so, so be it. In a global setup there is no room for protectionism. The competition is open and it is fierce. And if you are really good you need not fear it. Of course there are others who believe they are as good as their US and UK counterparts and so they are; but they will just have to wade in there and prove it.

In any case, LPOs themselves are totally unconcerned about any real or imagined insecurities that Indian lawyers might be experiencing. And rightly so. Outsourcing firms are sprouting as wildly and enthusiastically here as weeds in the Indian monsoons. Survival may not be an issue to most, but growing into an entity to contend with, certainly is. And for that, every weapon available must be used. If that includes employing foreign attorneys at twice the cost of what they would pay for their highest paid Indian legal employee, well, no one is thinking twice.

Incidentally the title of this post is a popular Hindi song which loosely translated means, "Hell, I just turned into the Boss."

Are Indian Lawyers Turning into Clerks?

2009-08-09T04:21:00.000-07:00

A lot of law firms in the US have back offices in India and several insist that the work be done by Indian attorneys rather than paralegals. Most of the work is low end work. The sort of work that in India is done by clerks with a 10+2 higher secondary school certificate.

For starry eyed young lawyers fresh out of law colleges faced with the reality that court practice in India is not for them, LPOs are an attractive option. But rare is the fresher who can work on a legal research project or engage in a really complex e-discovery project. The work they are set to do is prepare case files and upload data. Their concern is therefore, "are we turning into clerks?"

In an earlier post, I had written that a degree in law is sufficient for back office work. I eat my words. While the work is often mindless no-brain work, nevertheless the product delivered by Indian attorneys is often subpar. The reason is not that they are below the average in intelligence as compared with their US or UK counterparts, but rather that the intricacies of the English language often cripple them.

Even for low end, back office work, one needs to understand the queries raised. Legal writing is archaic and very technical. Because a lawyer has to cover all aspects of a situation in order to make a document airtight, the language is also invariably very convoluted and complex. Merely having studied and answered law exams in English does not suffice.

Law in many of our local colleges, is very often taught by professors who, while they are excellent with the subject itself, are from a vernacular background, with the result that their hold on the English language, is tenuous at best. An LL.B. degree merely introduces its holder to legal vocabulary; to breed familiarity, one needs to be constantly reading and handling legal documents.

Not understanding the difference between "referring" and "referral", "consistent" and "consisting", "verily" and "verify", "at " and "on", can indeed, like Cleopatra's nose, decide fates.

I would say the question is not whether Indian lawyers turning into clerks, but whether you are even qualified to work in an LPO merely because you have an LLB?

In my opinion a law degree is far from sufficent even to engage in practice in Indian courts; but since I restrict myself to a discussion on legal outsourcing, for that, I would say, one definitely needs something more. A certificate course in legal process outsourcing if it's syllabus includes training in Legal Communications might help to at least teach the basics. But this course needs to be taught by people who have an idea of the legal processes involved in legal process outsourcing. Anyone seeking enrolment for such courses needs to consider this. See also the Global Legal Professional Certification Test .

The truth is however, that even without a law degree or any legal outsourcing diploma, one can still do most of the low end legal work done in any LPO ( and which is indeed done by paralegals abroad), provided one has a good command of English. The question therefore, is not whether back office work is turning Indian lawyers into clerks, but whether they have the competence to do it? The decisive factor is their command on the English language. And that is the whole truth.

Are you right for a startup -II

2009-07-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

The last post generated some questions from job-seekers. A few issues are discussed here.

· Most startups and companies employ persons with higher qualifications.

When I was debating whether to study for a higher degree in law, the judge I was working for then, said to me, "It's not the degrees, but what you can do with them that counts." That led to me not only getting my Masters but also to leaving him and going on to better things.

Education is nothing but a manual telling you what to do in order to succeed but ultimately success will depend on your ability to implement that teaching in your daily life.

Any company, large or small, would rather employ someone who has passion and ambition, who can prove that he/she can play different roles, who displays inherent skills like being canny and street-smart, leadership qualities, even aggressiveness, than someone with just a string of degrees.

Qualifications are important. As important as possessing a strong fishing line. But you eat only if you have the determination, patience and skill to use the line to catch that fish.

· Companies employ women more readily, than men.

In the news is the Government of India’s latest decision to employ more women in government jobs. It is a fact that the fairer sex is generally believed to be more sincere, more compliant and less likely to run away with the office funds. Women also tend to put down roots and are less likely to job hop. They bond quickly and display far more loyalty than men do. That adds up to a lot of plus points. The downside is that they need more time off for child bearing, rearing, and home making.

Men on the other hand do not take as much time off, are prepared to work late, to come in at odd hours, and to take on heavier jobs. However male employees are far more likely to up and leave and not worry about the mess they might leave their employers in. Men also tend to bond less with their employing company.

However, no firm will employ exclusively on gender basis, except for organizations specifically instituted to provide jobs for women. The best employee base a company could have would be one with a slightly higher level of female to male employees and a finely mixed potpourri of all communities, religions and states, which would bring together persons with area and race-specific skills, adding to the richness of the work atmosphere and also enhancing productivity.

· Too much emphasis is placed on communication skills.

In my opinion, not enough emphasis can be placed on communication skills. Face it guys, you have to learn to talk the talk. You need not be an expert in the language. Even people whose mother tongue is English routinely make grammatical and spelling mistakes. However, knowledge of basic grammatical English is a must.

Very often students and employees ask for “tips” to enable them to speak English well. No amount of “tips” can make you speak and write well. I have always maintained that you must think, speak, and write the language if you want to master it.

I also feel very strongly that training in Communications does not end with the training period. During training you learn the basics but in order for the training to have any effect, you must continue to think and speak in English at all times and not just when you are forced to do so. If not, all that you learned will be just so much water down the drain.

I saw a message posted the other day which read, “Say him to write to me.” If you do not know when to use “say” and “tell”, I, for one, would not employ you.

Obama and the Indian in the LPO.

2009-05-23T10:17:00.001-07:00

Overheard recently, “Obama is out to close all the BPOs in India!”

Will President Obama really turn the tide of outsourcing back? No. There could be lesser work offshored by the US. But it will be mainly the small-change projects that will not be outsourced. And most BPOs and KPOs here are all set to meet this deficit by turning their attention to Australian, UK, and European processes.

So far as LPOS are concerned, Mr. Obama’s policy of taxing the profits earned by offshorers could result in vendors indulging in cost-cutting this side of the pond to increase profits; and the principal area of this cost-cutting is going to be salaries. One way of cost-cutting will be LPOs hiring mainly freshers on per-contract basis and paying them a minimum salary. Another method that is fast catching on, is providing a “training period” of two or three months to new employees and/or paying them a small stipend.

Should this side of the pond worry? I think not. Legal work demands higher ethics, and a greater degree of confidentiality and security of data than any other field of work. The attorney-client relationship is very like the doctor-patient one. It is based on absolute trust- which even a small breach of confidentiality will absolutely ruin. At the same time, the work produced by the LPOs has to be faultless, since no matter how high the level of trust, if the outcome of the litigation is affected because of the shoddy work done by vending LPOs, the client is going to yell blue murder. Therefore, sooner or later, every LPO is going to have to take a call on whether to hire freshers and risk less than perfect output, or sacrifice a percentage of profit and pay experienced professionals to provide a high quality of work.

Incidentally, it is this unique attorney-client relationship that is the root cause of the LPO industry taking a longer time to ramp up. No matter how convinced a law firm is of the ability of an LPO to meet its efficiency and due- diligence standards, prudence dictates that it test the waters by sending out smaller jobs initially, and then graduate slowly to larger ones.

In his latest post Mukul makes a conclusion that legal process outsourcing is no longer a hot career option for those interested in legal services. This sounds very much like what the naysayers were saying when Jerry Rao launched Mphasis-There was never going to be a future for those who choose to make a career in BPOs. It is Jerry Rao and those who did take the leap who are still having the last laugh. There i s never going to be a dearth of lawyers opting for LPOs. With the lawyers who passed out of law colleges in 1955 still practicing in courts today, where is the place for the hundreds of lawyers tumbling out of colleges each year?

Besides, I find many management students opting to do short-term courses in various branches of law, merely because they do not want to lose out on a chance to work in legal project management. Many of my lawyer-colleagues with a dozen years and more of practice in Pune courts, are very keen t o give it up and work in LPOS.

I do agree however, that if LPOs continue to provide only back-office job work to employees, this may inhibit the more talented legal professionals from entering the industry. But this percentage is minuscule compared to the hundreds who will find even the more simple back office functions performed in LPOS challenging, mainly because they find English speaking a challenge.

A few LPOs are making hay by providing training in US Law and English language at a fee while they wait for the bigger projects to come in. Wise ones! It is not only those who hit the gold lode but also those who provide the spades that win.

Outsourcing Without Terror

2009-04-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

The Central Industrial Security Force Act (CISF) has been active, on paper at least, since 1968. The Act provided cover against terrorist attacks mainly to central government installations and public sector undertakings. Of note, the CISF covers public monuments, including ‘samadhis’, which does raise a question of how come the long dead-and-gone are of more value than the living, particularly since despite active lobbying by the private sector the Act had so far not provided cover to any private sector undertakings or joint ventures.

However, post 26/11 the concerns of the private sector fuelled by global anxieties about security issues relating to business with India, reached a crescendo, ultimately resulting in the amendment to the CISF Act in February 2009. This amendment extended CISF cover to establishments in the private sector, where threat perceptions were adjudged to be the highest, by Indian intelligence agencies.

The IT sector is the first to be allowed such cover. Strangely, the hospitality industry, read 5-star hotels, which was the target of 26/11, has not been granted CISF cover as yet, despite repeated terror threats even after 26/11.

The CISF security net comes at a steep price. It is provided on a full cost-reimbursement basis. However, to the multinational corporations which are raking in profits in dollars and pounds, this is not an issue. They are prepared to pay the price, if only to let their foreign clients sleep easy.

The security cover provided includes paramilitary personnel, commandoes trained to strike and fire at terrorists, and to prevent and retaliate in case of terrorist attacks. CISF also provides consultancy services, in fire and security. Data protection however, is not its field. Nor will the security personnel under CISF perform the services performed by your regular security guards. Companies will have to continue to hire their regular security staff for that.

The giants-Infosys, Wipro and Reliance are the winners in the scramble for CISF cover. They can well afford it. What about the smaller fry? Should someone be thinking in terms of training and arming and maintaining private security forces to provide cover to smaller establishments?

The question of course remains as to how effective any form of security cover could be when faced with an attack like the 26/11 one.

MAKE YOUR RESUME WORK FOR YOU

2009-04-15T03:14:00.000-07:00

BEFORE WRITING YOUR RESUME:

THINK: Your resume is YOU. When a prospective employer reads your resume, he/she is looking at what you are. Your resume should present a picture of you.

UPDATED RESUME: If you have been hopping in and out of jobs or working on different projects for brief periods, maintain a diary of the projects you worked on and keep your resume updated on these. If you have worked on new or different software, or learned a different skill, make notes and remember to update your resume with those.

NEVER LIE. A single lie, even a white one, will doom your prospects.

KEEP IT CONCISE: No more than one or two pages.

MAKE IT TARGETED: Don’t send the same resume for different job-types. Target your resume to the job. If you are technically qualified as well as a good writer and are applying for the post of copywriter which requires mainly writing skills, emphasize your writing skills and achievements, mentioning tech qualifications briefly. Conversely, while applying for a technical job, emphasize those skills and experience mentioning writing prowess as an additional skill.

DON’T TRY TO BE CREATIVE: A creative resume is one written in an informal style. This can be arresting and interesting, but unless you are applying for a creative post, refrain from doing it. You might come across as being unprofessional.

WHILE WRITING:

MAKE IT CHRONOLOGICAL: Begin with the latest qualification or job and move backwards. If you have a degree that presupposes having an earlier degree, you need only mention the latter one. For example, a B.A. cannot be had in India without the qualification of an HSC. So if you are a B.A., you need only list B.A., unless you scored really high in the HSC results, in which case this deserves a special mention. Again, if you went to a really prestigious school/college, mention this in your resume, since like it or not, a good school makes a difference in terms of communications and attitude. If you do not happen to have attended any well known institution, just mention your academic qualifications, the university you got them from, and leave it at that.

GAPS IN JOBS: When listing jobs you have held, mention the period for each job. If there is a break in jobs, state the reason for the break e. g., study break, a break to have a baby; look after a parent, etc. If your job graph shows a gap because you were unemployed then you could just mention the year in which you worked at a job for e.g., if you worked for six months in the year 2006 and were unemployed the rest of the year, just put: “2006: Worked as research assistant to Dr. Dubey at Pune University.”

If you are questioned, tell the truth.

LONG TIME -ONE JOB: If you have been at a single job for a long time mention the promotions you received at that job and the various job functions you performed. This helps remove the idea of being stagnated in a job. For e.g., 1985 to 1997: Legal assistant to Advocate Seth. Filing, keeping accounts, drafting sale deeds, conveyance, court appearances.

LISTING SPECIAL AWARDS: Mention awards and scholarships received separately; but do remember that your employer is not interested in the prize you won for winning the tennis match in Grade 10, or the prize you won in the chess tournament held on Company Day. Any pro bono work, affiliation with NGOs, voluntary work should be mentioned.

LISTING HOBBIES: Unless you have some really unusual hobby like digital art, photography, designing, or bartending, do not list hobbies. If you are requested to list them, be truthful and don’t try to impress by saying things like coin collection, when all the coins you have are the ones that went out of circulation a couple of years back.

PERSONAL INFORMATION OR SALARY HISTORY: Never, except on specific request.

AFTER COMPLETION:

SIT ON IT: Don’t send it off at once. Read it again the next day or in a couple of days. You will find it needs editing and additions. Also get someone else’s feedback on it.

BRIEF COVER LETTER: Address the cover letter directly to the person who is offering you the job. If you do not know the name, find out; if not, address it to the position, for e.g.: The Personnel Manager, Dublin & Co.

MAIL IT: If you are sending off your resume by e-mail to several different companies, do not lump names of all the companies together, in the address column. That’s really stupid. Send to each addressee separately.

Do write in if you have queries.

The Freshers' Future

2009-04-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

Posting in a long while. Sincere apologies and a promise to post every fortnight.

Last week while at college I was asked what was the scene like in LPOs. Well, cost cutting seems to be the name of the game these days. Rightly so. Whether you are, or are not affected by the recession, or the situation in the US, this is not a time to be insular. It is rather a time to work together to overcome the financial crisis.

The future of legal outsourcing has been discussed threadbare. Everyone seems to agree that it is going to go places despite the recession in the US. Personally I feel that this may not be so in the very near future at least.

But the bottom line in business is profits and while a firm could decide NOT to offshore work where the anticipated profits are small and thus be seen to be patriotic, where larger profits are involved, the work will be offshored, immaterial of considerations of political correctness.

The affect this side of the pond will be that small projects may not be offshored but the bigger ones certainly will. Similarly the smaller legal firms abroad would decide to offshore work simply because they cannot afford not to. They need to make profits in order to survive.

It is very true that the most affected by the state of the economy, are freshers. Every company even those with bigger projects on hand, is preferring to recruit on a temporary basis and not face the hassle of handing out yearly packages. Go with the flow. Take what comes and be sure to keep note of where you worked and what you worked on. Some day soon, all this work experience on your resume is going to look good.

Another concern expressed was that of US and UK lawyers being employed in Indian LPOs. I really do not think the figures would be significant enough to affect the professional prospects of Indian lawyers. However, even if they are, I think if you are going to go global, you have to be ready to face the competition.

I repeat and repeat, polish your language and communication skills. This is your Achilles heel.

Next week’s post: On Resumes and References.

PGDin Legal Process Outsourcing

2009-02-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

The Indira Gandhi National Open University has just announced a one-year post-graduate diploma course in Legal Process Outsourcing. The eligibility for the course is a degree in Law and final year law students also may apply. www.ignouonline.ac.in/pgdipo. Now this is a first.
An earlier post also talks about the Global Legal Professional Certification Test for those seeking a career in LPOs.
I doubt they would be teaching you anything there that you would not learn in your first couple of months on an LPO job but in a competitive world, any extra teeth are always useful.

Do remember that irrespective of the number of diplomas and degrees and your degree of technical knowledge, no LPO is going to hire you if you do not have a good knowledge of spoken and written English.

RECRUITMENT IN AN LPO: Freshers are generally hired by most firms for all the routine dig-the-dirt jobs. What an LPO looks for while recruiting freshers is a good knowledge of English, a good law degree, and some computer knowledge, in that order.

For the high-end jobs, an LPO would seek legal professionals with an excellent command over English, good law degrees from reputed colleges, an ability to carry out legal research, and an ability to be able to compile and draft documents. Since legal process outsourcing is a new field, experience of working in an LPO in such a capacity would be invaluable, but if you can show that you have the potential to do such work, lack of experience would not really be a hindrance.

If you have done any thesis or have written papers in your college courses, (which involved researching, collecting material, compiling a paper) put that in your resume. You might, even if you are a fresher, be considered for the quality jobs.

Some good news on the Pune LPO front. I hear of start up LPOs which are undertaking legal process work outsourced by Indian law firms. (Watch this space for news on such LPOs.)

For those setting out on a career in LPOs, the LPOs tackling local legal process outsourcing jobs are a safer bet to work for, than those which handle only offshored projects because the latter are at some time or other going to face a gap in between projects, which means you are going to be laid off at the end of the project.

An LPO which handles local work as well as offshored projects, will usually have projects the year round. So those of you looking to start a career in outsourcing, you should, at least initially, opt for those LPO firms which handle both local and offshored projects, if you don’t want frequent ‘breaks’ in your career graph.

All the best,

Types of Jobs in LPOs

2009-01-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

To conclude the discussion in my last post, on the type of work you could find in an LPO.

Legal Research Projects: This is really enjoyable work but does require some experience in actually conducting research. Unfortunately, the syllabus for the LL.B. and the BSL.LLB. course followed in our colleges, does not provide any training in conducting legal research. However, the Masters’ degree course in Law does, and if you would like to be entrusted with this sort of high-end work it would be better if you equip yourself with an LLM from a good University. (Yes, that makes a difference!) Nevertheless, even that degree is useless if you do not have a grasp over the English language and a keen analytical mind.

A good researcher understands thoroughly the subject he/she is researching; is able to comb through, sift, and filter all the matter collected and ultimately judge what is relevant for the project and what is not. Many LPOs employ freshers to do the base research because freshers are cheap labor. Freshers do not take on the responsibility of deciding which material needs to be jettisoned and which retained, with the result that a load of every and each nugget of information on the subject is put up before the senior researchers, who do the ultimate sifting and filtering. This is a serious waste of time and money, with projects having killing deadlines.

The baseline is that in order to do legal research, you need to be either very good at legal analysis, or you just go get that LLM degree. In either case, make sure your English is good.

Drafting: While you may have been drafting documents, deeds and notices in Indian courts, drafting US and UK legal documents is not exactly the same thing. For one, although UK and Indian laws have a similar base, the legal language there is far superior. Each country also has a definite pattern of drafting documents, which you will learn once you jump into the drafting field, provided you have a flair for the language. This, coupled with a good legal degree, and a little bit of training from the LPO, and you could be all set to work on drafting documents.

Legal transcription: While this generally figures as low end work, it is extremely difficult to get good legal transcriptionists in India, which is the reason why few LPOs handle it. Nowhere else is a command over the language as essential as in this field. Transcription is a process of listening to voice audios and transcribing as you listen and a good legal transcriptionist needs to be able to understand the accents of US and UK attorneys and have some knowledge of the laws of that country. In the US particularly, accents differ depending on the region. Moreover, most attorneys are overworked, harassed persons, whose dictations are peppered with asides and often garbled. Yet, accuracy is essential. Since transcription work often involves court orders and depositions, even a word out of place could prove fatal.

Legal editing: This is the easiest of all LPO jobs. All you need is knowledge and excellence in every other field of work!!! The bright side is that you don’t need to be too tech savvy and you are allowed to be temperamental.

Next post: What would I look for in a prospective LPO employee?

If you have any inputs, criticisms, brickbats, whatever, it would be helpful if you post comments, rather than e-mailing me.

What do I need to join an LPO?

2009-01-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

A visit last week, to the courts at Pune convinced me that there are dozens of lawyers out there, longing for a career change. As one of my previous posts mentioned, court corridors in India are not everyone's cup of tea . (Most law students have terrified, glazed expressions after the mandatory college court-visit.) Old lawyer friends, some with 15 and 20 years of experience in law, fledgling lawyers, gathered around wanting some inputs about legal process outsourcing. It's not possible to give impromptu lectures on outsourcing and I said so. The matter might have ended there, had not several telephone calls from lawyers I have never heard of convinced me that I must do something. I have decided therefore, to use this site to 'educate' people about how to go about building a career in outsourcing. This post addresses a couple of the very basic questions asked by some of them:

What special training do I need for getting into an LPO?- No special training is required. Your law degree ( the higher the degree and more the diplomas to your credit, the better,) and a basic knowledge of computers is essential. Some LPOs even function with a staff of mainly computer professionals with a few legal professionals thrown in. But let's not go into that. Essential also, is a good command over the English language.

This unfortunately, is what is most lacking in Indian lawyers. They know to read and write English but spoken English needs serious improvement. I suggest spoken English classes (e-mail me for details) and a continuous practice at reading, writing and speaking in English.

In a previous post, I have spoken about the Global Legal Professional Certification Test and provided the link. Look it up. To my knowledge no LPOs in Pune demand this test, but it would be good to have this under your belt, just to get an edge over the competition.

Generally, what most outsourcing firms look for while recruiting is a candidate with a degree in law, a basic knowledge of computers and a good command over English. If you have specializations in subjects like patents, taxation or cyber law etc. that would definitely be an added asset.

What sort of work would I get to do in an LPO?- This too is discussed in a previous post. At present it is mostly mundane, form-filling work that is available. Some of the older LPOs do have document review work and coding. While the work of filling in forms, (summons, warrants, bankruptcy forms), is easy and anyone can do it, it can get very monotonous.

Document review is more interesting. For this, you will need to be able to read a document, (here is why you need good English), and identify whether the document is relevant or not. Relevancy would be explained to you in the training provided by the Project Director before you begin the project. Your success at this job on how good you are at interpreting the language in a document. A little experience in the legal field, in reading legal documents, court depositions and the like is necessary. You need to have at least looked at a few patents, licenses, sale deeds, mortage documents and similar documents, so you know what you are looking at.

Coding also requires similar skills. Most professionals get adept at document review and coding work once they are through a project or two. So, unless you scraped through your law examinations you should be able to do both document review and coding work, provided of course, as I said you have a couple of years' experience in the legal field.

What about freshers? Many LPOs employ freshers for their coding jobs. Some coding jobs only require data entry type of operations, filling in dates, tagging documents which contain 'relevant' words or communications, which can easily be done by anyone with some knowledge of law and computers. Again a good command over English is essential.

There are other types of work done in LPOs, which will be discussed in my next post. Also discussed would be - what I would look for if I were recruiting a candidate. Wait for it. Until then practice your English.

Is an LLB enough for an LPO ..The GLPC Test

2008-12-24T01:28:00.000-08:00

One of the concerns expressed by foreign law firms offshsoring to India, is whether Indian attorneys have the capacity to deliver work on par with their US counterparts. The basis of this concern seems to be the fact that the US attorney has to clear a Bar exam apart from the law exams, which is not the case with the Indian attorney. I think this is a very reasonable concern.

As a teacher of law it has become apparent to me, that the law as taught in our law colleges is strictly examination oriented. In India, law degrees are conferred either after a 5-year law course following secondary school (BSL.LLB.), or as a post-graduate degree in law, (LLB.) Both courses chiefly teach the origin of law, which perforce is a study of British law, and the principal codes of law in India.

Are either of these degrees a sufficient qualification for working in an LPO? Yes, if the work is the sort of work that most LPOs are getting presently, which is mostly a filling of data for summonses, warrants, bankruptcy forms, that any clerk, given some basic training could do.

If however, you are looking at more complicated legal work, a BSL.LLB or an LLB. is not enough. Reviewing documents for assessing their relevancy in a court proceeding, judging patent infringements, or deciding whether a particular document is ‘hot’ needs a more in-depth knowledge of law. Furthermore, the work of drafting documents, or legal research work is impossible to be done competently, with just a Bachelor’s Degree. In fact, for the LLB course, drafting of documents is taught in just the final semester. Legal research is not taught at all.

A Masters degree in Law (LLM), however, makes up for that. The LLM course teaches a study of law from a totally different perspective. The reason, cause and effect of laws is studied which requires a disbanding all the various parts of law and putting them together again. The process necessarily involves use of all your commonsense, reasoning powers, and intelligence. Review and research tools, the process and methodology of legal research are also learned here.

Those few LPOs that are getting high-end legal research work, employ LLB holders to do it, after (perhaps), giving them a very, very brief training on the project. They however, do employ professionals with a Masters Degree in Law to do the actual, final, quality work on the project. If the work is medico-legal in nature, medical professionals too may be called in for a final dekko.

To conclude, while Indian professionals may not have a Bar exam to pass in order to qualify them to deliver work as good as the US attorney, a Masters degree in Law more than meets the demand.

Another test that has been developed by LPOs to enable them to access the best professionals available in India, is the Global Legal Professional Certification Test, available online. http://www.glptest.com/ The test assesses a candidate’s professional, legal and technical knowledge, as well as his command over English. It also claims to test ethics. In my opinion, an in-depth interview of a prospective candidate would serve a similar purpose, but the test coulda serve to give professionals an edge, when it comes to cutting out the competition which is going to get cut-throat soon.

Nothing however, can beat the training provided by a handful of LPOs, in US and UK laws and procedures. Unfortunately, few LPOs do this. The reason could be the time consumed in such training , as also the fact that considering the rate of attrition, very often the benefits reaped could be by someone other than the trainer. But this sort of training coupled with a higher degre in law is invaluable, for LPOs seeking to develop a high-quality bank of employees to work on complicated legal projects.

Legal Outsourcing Ethics

2008-12-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

The newly passed Limited Liability Partnership Bill 2008, together with the amendments to the Companies Act, allow formation of partnerships, in which liability of the partners is limited and also remove restrictions that were in place ever since the Companies Act came into existence. Not only will Indian professionals be able to set up shop outside the country but foreign firms will find it easier to bring their business to India, since the new provisions bring great flexibility in operations to companies and put India on par with global provisions in this respect. Under the new provisions, winding up of the entity is also made easier since the more severe strictures provided under the Indian tax law can now be avoided.

All this is good news for legal process outsourcing in India, which is already on an upward spiral. It will result, and indeed already has, in a rash of small LPOs crowding the outsourcing scene. Some of these will be swallowed by the bigger corporations but the feistier ones will thrive. The ultimate test of success or survival of any LPO, whether it is a huge corporate or a smaller firm, will be the amount of business it will be able to attract. This race to fetch business is going to be a breathtaking one and could result in the breaking of many an outsourcing rule.

A major concern in legal process outsourcing has always been maintaining confidentiality of client data and preserving the attorney –client privilege. The ethics of legal process outsourcing however, is not confined to just these two issues. It also includes an ethical procurement of business. In the face of cutthroat competition service providers might well be tempted to throw any or all of these considerations of ethics to the winds and overlook unethical behavior on the part of its management, in the face of their ability to bring business to the firm.

While outsourcing work, legal process outsourcers generally make an enquiry into past projects, the technical competencies of the LPO, and outsourcing ethics. While every LPO highlights its technical know how and the projects undertaken, by it, its concern as regards outsourcing ethics seem in comparison, remarkably downplayed. Any LPO that intends to develop a reputation for soundness in business would do well to guard against unethical conduct not only by employees but also by its management.

The outsourcer, while enquiring into the credentials of an LPO, must therefore carefully scrutinize not only the credentials of the legal professionals employed in the LPO, but also the professional background of the persons in charge on either side of the pond. In the interests of security and the ultimate survival of the LPO, the professional ethics of management personnel in an LPO should be the most important consideration, more even than his or her qualifications, capability, or ability to bring business to the LPO.

Not only the outsourcer but legal professionals too, should assess options carefully. Job hoppers need only consider infrastructure, ergonomics and the pay scales; but those discerning lawyers who intend to make a career in legal outsourcing must scrutinize the type of work being provided by the LPO and take a careful look at the background and history of the company. No matter how upscale the LPO, and how impressive its roll call of directors, if the business ethics of even one is unsound, it takes very little to bring down the edifice and you with it.

Outsourcing-the Beginning

2008-11-17T03:30:00.000-08:00

In India, law has traditionally been a respected profession with many of our politicians and freedom fighters being lawyers and our court corridors teem with “black coats”, many of whom literally tout for work. Most youngsters who take up law are bright kids from educated backgrounds for whom working in murky courtrooms, rife with bureaucracy, corruption and red tapism, and who have to engage in an unequal contest with senior attorneys who never retire but practice till they literally drop dead, is definitely unacceptable. Making a living in the practice of law in India is tough work. To be a successful lawyer here, just good brains are not enough. Moreover, to build up a practice without a father or godfather in the legal field, takes at least five years if not more. And for women, the picture is even more dispiriting. The prejudice against women lawyers, no matter how accomplished is not likely to die down any time soon. The only other alternatives to court practice that are available, are working back office with senior counsel at a miserable pittance, or doing conveyance work. Neither of these options is tempting to young lawyers, burning to make money and earn a name.

Legal process outsourcing has appeared on the Indian horizon like the proverbial rainbow promising a pot of gold, to the hordes of lawyers being churned out yearly by hundreds of law colleges all over the country.

The young lawyer of today is an extremely articulate and well trained professional, holding not only a basic degree in law but often even a masters’ degree. Many specialize in different branches of law, like taxation, cyber law, or intellectual property. A large number also hold management degrees in addition to their law degrees.

We have started dating but will the dream last? Most LPOs here provide only mundane, routine legal work like filling in summonses, or transcribing depositions and interrogatories or coding of documents. This can be extremely boring to a youngster with a string of qualifications and after a while, the package however fat, may fail to provide job satisfaction. Unless LPOs start providing employees with high end work, they could find well themselves facing a dearth of qualified professionals.

Nasscom chief Natarajan predicts a 2500-crore business for LPOs by 2010. That will happen. With the current recession corporations need to save money more than ever and e-discovery costs are a major concern. The present financial crisis will do for Indian LPOs what Y2K did for Indian IT outsourcing companies. But unless we get high end jobs outsourced here, the bubble might just pop.

Paul Easton, MD for Global Colleague, an LPO in Pune puts forth the concept of contract attorneys. According to him, “The recent trend of contract legal employees that is catching on is one that will succeed. Such contract work will give exposure and experience not easily obtained elsewhere without having to make a long term commitment if you are unsure if you want to dedicate your career to an LPO. Some will want to do this work for lifestyle reasons, if it pays enough to allow other needs to be met during the downtime. I think it will shake up the legal market in India.”

Far be it for me to argue with an expert but surely while this might work for those who have an alternate source of income, to the fledgling lawyer just embarking on a career, the prospect of being employed on a contract basis, with perhaps being out of a job, for a few months every year, could be alarming. Moreover, he/she would be put in the unenviable position of being unable to go back to a career in the practice of law since legal practice is a demanding mistress requiring tremendous inputs in terms of time and labor and intolerant of anyone taking a break from it job for any amount of time.

On the other hand, if the LPO industry takes off, as it seems set to do, then the shoe might well be on the other foot. It could be the legal professionals who prefer to work on contract, picking and choosing the type of work they want to engage in.