Encouraged by the successful growth of the IT outsourcing industry, India has turned its attention to another field to conquer: Legal BPO.
Attention from law firms, multi-national corporations’ legal departments, and even the legal research and publishing firms, legal outsourcing might just be the next big thing. Though still in its infancy with only 2% - 3% gained of the potential market, legal BPO looks very promising with figures for outsourceable legal services hitting 9 figures with US$3 – 4 billion at stake.
"While the size of the Indian legal BPO segment is still very small, the success achieved by early movers has established the proof-of-concept, which is the key to unlocking the potential in new waves of offshore-outsourcing,” reads a NASSCOM report. It optimistically furthers, "The legal services segment is a relatively newer segment that has witnessed recent interest and is believed to hold significant market potential.”
For the moment, legal services outsourced to India are of the para-legal and secretarial support nature. Further services are being eyed for export, such as contract review, patent writing, litigation support, and general research and review. An estimated US$ 250 billion is anticipated in revenues generated by offshoring of legal services – 2/3 of these coming from US clients.
Indian firms who have heeded the call early, providing offshored legal services include in-house legal departments of multinational corporations that have migrated to their India branches: General Electric, Oracle, Sun and Cisco. Offshore-centric service providers such as those devoted to legal services have been contributing the legal BPO growth as well, as Pangea3, Atlas Legal Research, Lexadigm, and Lawwave have been doing. Service providers with legal or patent support services have also come into play, with the likes of Evalueserve, Office Tiger, and Manthan Services in the offing.
"It is reported that there are about a dozen pure-play firms offering offshore legal services from India, and the total number of companies offering some form of offshore/outsourced legal services is about 50," says NASSCOM. Head count for India’s fledgling legal BPO industry stands at 600 – 700 employees, with rates playing around the $12 - $125 rate, dependent upon the nature of service rendered.
Monday September 12, 2005 at 9:20AM - Offshore Outsourcing World Staff
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