Are Indian Lawyers Turning into Clerks?

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.

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.