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.

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.

Swine flu in the LPO

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.

PGDin Legal Process Outsourcing

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,

Legal Outsourcing Ethics

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

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.