Legal outsourcing trends are being adopted by many practicing attorneys, law firms and corporate sectors. Outsourcing legal work to third-party vendors is now a growing trend as it has considerably helped individual attorneys and law firms to increase profits and reduce the workload.
What are Legal Outsourcing Trends?
Individual attorneys and Law firms are outsourcing legal projects to legal support service providers. With the exception of legal research services, most of the projects usually involve work that is time consuming and repetitive in nature. Projects that are more time consuming or the cost of performing the same in-house is high when compared to the cost charged by the legal support service provider are outsourced to third party vendors. The latest example of outsourcing projects can be cited as bankruptcy and immigration lawyers using the services firms providing legal support services in India for the preparation of the forms needed for the processing of their cases. Attorneys practicing civil litigation outsource e-discovery compliance and records review, while those practicing in personal injury outsource work like collection and consolidation of data, classification of claims, sending notices, and distribution of client payments. Many attorneys also outsource projects like drafting of contracts and due diligence work. Legal outsourcing trends has enabled individuals to acquire more business at a competitive cost.
Legal research is yet another example of legal outsourcing trends being currently outsourced to legal support services providers based in India. Such projects usually involve drafting of motions or briefs for a case to be filed with the trial court, or it can be a complex project like the research and drafting an appellate brief. The projects that are outsourced usually have less privacy issues and require skills to complete the project at a proficient level.
How is legal outsourcing done?
Legal outsourcing is done through the use of service providers offering legal support services or by direct contractual hire. Outsourcing overseas proves advantageous when compared to the cost of in-house production. India is a very popular destination for legal outsourcing trends/services owing to its progressive English skills and a similar legal system compared to that of US.
The work, when outsourced is performed by law graduates/lawyers and an NDA is signed before the project is outsourced so as to maintain complete confidentiality of the data thus shared by the client. Strict quality checks are undertaken so as to ensure that quality output is delivered to the client within the stipulated time frame. Legal outsourcing trends ensures quality output within the stipulated time frame.
Outsourcing legal work can be an effective tool for increasing the efficiency and productivity of a firm. It is advisable the individual attorneys, solo practitioners and law firms should explore the legal process outsourcing industry so as to increase and improve their efficiency and to keep the costs low.
Also one should not forget that being in a different time zones proves advantageous as legal outsourcing firms based in India owing to their 24X7 work environment thus ensuring that all projects are delivered on time.
What all services does legal support services include?
The services that the legal outsourcing firms usually provide include
- Contract management
- Contract review
- Contract and lease drafting
- General litigation support services
- Legal research
- Writing blogs and articles
- Form filling and admin work
The legal support services firms specialize in providing a wide range of legal support services and employ a team of law graduates and paralegals well trained in drafting, research and litigation support services.
How does outsourcing help in reducing cost?
Legal process outsourcing ideally using the low-cost services of lawyers based in India or hiring legal research firms or hiring attorneys on contractual basis to handle temporary legal projects. A substantial amount of legal work is now being handled by lawyers based in India as the attorney who was hired to do the work outsourced the same to save on cost and time, this being one of the factors resulting in the growth of legal outsourcing trends.
Many a times, the corporate sector directly outsources their legal requirements to offshore based vendors thus bypassing the American lawyers. India has been a preferred destination for outsourcing legal projects owing to two reasons, first one being that Indians enjoy the advantage of learning two languages right from birth, one being English, and the second advantage is that the Indian Judiciary System resemble the American Judiciary System and being in a different time zone also proves beneficial to attorneys based in United States.
Legal outsourcing is a boon for busy attorney and law firms to handle complex and time-consuming projects on a more reasonable budget. Solo practitioners and small firms can now handle cases that would otherwise be too big for them. Outsourcing can help attorneys and law firms in making their rates more viable by procuring subcontracted legal services for a reduced price. Firms making use of legal outsourcing have found outsourcing beneficial as it precludes them to hire on full-time employees.
For all reasons discussed, legal outsourcing trends has gained too much popularity and the legal outsourcing industry shows huge growth potentials in the next few years.