Wednesday, January 11, 2006

CNN/IBN proflies the Legal Outsourcing Industry

Below are some highlights from a recent article appearing on CNN/IBN website on January 8, 2006 profiling the legal outsourcing industry:

They are among the more recent entrants to the outsourcing party. They are the Indian lawyers. If industry reports are any indication, the country's legal eagles could well give much muscle to India's knowledge process outsourcing growth story. The legal services sector is tipped to be the next big offshore destination and corporate lawyers are increasingly hopping on to the outsourcing bandwagon and are handling prestigious international clients.

Recent industry reports peg the annual value of legal outsourcing at $80 mn and predict that it will rise up to $4 bn by 2015 - that translates to almost 80,000 more jobs for lawyers in India.

"Indian law is based on common law and the common law governs the basic law everywhere in the world. Indian lawyers are much in demand right now due to their sheer understanding of the law," Gunjan, a partner with ZeusPro, says.

With a just a couple of thousand employees spread across less than 50 firms, LPO outfits in India offer paralegal and research support, draft and revise contracts, handle patent filing and prosecution for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) like GE, Oracle and Sun and international law firms.

The opportunities are immense and the new breed of lawyers swear by it. "I would say it is very exciting and there are tremendous opportunities for us," Gunjan says.

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