Mary or Merry-what's in a name?

Several years ago I wrote on the importance of English in the business of outsourcing.   That truth remains unchanged.  Sadly the quality of English taught in most of our schools has not improved.  Earlier convent and missionary schools were the ultimate bastions of impeccable English.   But with our education laws insisting on interfering with school boards the English taught there is not what it was.  There are private schools where the State does not tread, but the less said about the education that "international" schools offer the better.

Last month there was this fresher who came in for an interview.  A smart, young, lady prattling in fairly good English.  Glancing at her resume I saw she had spelt the name of her school, "St. Merry's".  Surprised, I googled the school and of course it was "St. Mary's."  Perhaps it was a typo?
Prepared to give her the benefit of doubt, without pointing out her error I asked her to spell out the name of her school. "M-e-r-r-y" came the answer.
When I suggested it might be M-A-R-Y,  she looked puzzled for a moment, and then nodded giggling. (Yes she did.)
 After spending 12 years writing the name of her school, in every single book, perhaps dozens of times a year,  and just four years since leaving that school, she could not spell the name of her school!
And she didn't seem to find anything wrong with that.  Moron.

What, after all can any school teach someone who cannot take the trouble to remember its name?

Today I had an employee, a sincere, hardworking girl but English-language handicapped,  come in telling me that the insurer's letter asked for healthcare denials.  What the document actually said was that the bills had been partly paid by healthcare. Sigh. 
Girl, if you cannot read and interpret simple things like that, how can you ever be able to understand the immensely complicated and convoluted terms that attorneys normally use?   That one is headed for the chopping block.

That said, there's no need to be disheartened, you. There are plenty of giant LPOs that deal in work requiring only average English language skills.  And the work is repetitive. So once you learn what is needed, you're good for the next few years.  Or the next process anyway.  Just make sure you are able to make it through the interview speaking only in English. Let the accent go hang.

10 years in Legal Outsourcing-5 facts for you

I've been too busy dealing with outsourced business to keep up my blog.  Still am. But having just about finished a decade in the outsourcing business successfully (touchwood!) and looking at the number of page views here (as compared to the page views for my other blog Notebook, which I think is the more interesting blog) I thought I should revive this blog. Particularly since I have years of experience to share. Since this comes after a long hiatus, this is going to be a short entry.

5 things you must accept when in the outsourcing business-
1. No matter how high up the ladder you are, you're never going to be as rich as your outsourcers.
2. The fewer the number of middlemen/women involved in getting the business to you, the richer you are.
3. The only thing your outsourcers are concerned about is money.
4. The only thing you should be concerned about is the quality of work outsourced.
5. There are levels and levels in outsourced tasks,  but if you're lucky enough to get real litigation work, there's nothing more exciting!

See you soon.

For a Few Pennies More or Less...

I am one of those unfortunates who find it difficult to lie.  (In my defense, this, as some other small things, can be squarely blamed on the nuns at the convent school I attended.)  The inability to lie, although it sounds very virtuous, in fact, makes life difficult, because very often, we blurt out the truth when the occasion begs for a lie!   Although everyone glorifies “truth” in the abstract, no one really likes truthful persons.  We are labeled, “rude”, “blunt”, “politically incorrect” and therefore, while universally trusted, we are, nonetheless, mostly disliked.

Now,  although lawyers are widely supposed to be liars, I  happen to believe very firmly that if  success is built on the foundation of subterfuge, lies and deceit, it belittles you. Makes you small. And so, long ago, I decided that I’d rather be a shining failure than a smutty success.  That I have never really tasted failure, could be evidence, I think, to the fact that goodness (and good people) can be far more devastating and ruthless than evil!

Recently however, I received a long tutorial on the art of lying, without actually lying.

I began by pointing out that what I had written was the truth.

Yes, they agreed, it surely is.  But you know what, if you DON’T point out the truth, we'll win this.

But, what’s the point of winning on the back of lies and untruths?

It’s not lying.  It’s just hiding the truth.

But you know what the truth is and you know you’re hiding it even if the other party doesn’t. And at some point, they will know it too.

Oh, by the time they found out, we’ll have won!

But they’ll know you concealed the truth.

Too bad.

They might think you're untrustworthy.

Ha! They do it too.

Isn’t it better to fight fair?

Perhaps. But in business it's better to fight to win.

Damn. I forgot the law isn't a profession anymore. It's business.

Bashing up the Bullies.

Nasty, rude behavior, back biting, bullying can make the workplace miserable. But running away from it doesn’t help.  You might find it at some other workplace too.  Nor is it always possible to change such behavior.  Yet simply enduring is not a happy option either.   The only way to deal with such workplace behavior is to devise smart tactics to handle the creeps who indulge in it.  The bright side is that most bullies, whether male or female are usually not very bright and are definitely insecure which is the reason they resort to such behavior in order to hide their own limitations.   So, with a little intelligence, a lot of calm and the ideas given below, you can wipe the floor with them.

1.       Kill them with kindness.  Be nice, be courteous, return their nastiness with sweetness. (Of course, cursing their black hearts all the while.)  Pretend you just can’t believe they really mean to be rude or nasty.  One colleague I knew wrote simply horrible e-mails.  At first, I was aghast. Then I began replying to such mails by telling him I didn’t believe he really meant to say all that or asking him whether the work was getting him down, why was he sounding so stressed and could I help? It took some effort, but after a while he stopped.

2.       Ask questions. The moment you find some person or a group of persons making snide comments or acting rude, ignore what they said and start asking them questions.  Ask anything. Where did you get that shirt? When is Rupa getting married?  How is Mona’s baby?  What does Coalgate mean?  Humans are conditioned to reply to questions.  The bullies will have to do a mental shift to answer your questions and thereby you  avoid a situation.

3.      Never be rude.  Not ever. The moment you begin to indulge in similar behavior, you leave yourself wide open to other people behaving the same with you.   Although it is true that one bad apple may ruin the basket, yet decency is contagious too.

4.       Ask for Help .It is always a good idea to approach management for a solution.  If no help is forthcoming, stand up for yourself. Point out to the person/s who are bullying you or being rude to you, that you do not like bit.  Make sure they realize that you are not going to run away from them, (which is what they want) but will fight to the bitter end to deal with them.  Bullies are cowards.  The moment they see your determination, they'll have their tails between their legs..

5.       Keep yourself busy. You are at the office to do a job. Immerse yourself in it.  Take your lunch out of the office. Take walks in your break time. Talk to cheerful people.  This will help take your mind off the negativity.  

6.        

Co-sourcing and LPOs

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

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?

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

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.

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

         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...."

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

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

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

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?

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.