Legal Outsourcing firm comes to Livonia, Michigan

Legal outsourcing firm comes to LivoniaBY DAN WEST STAFF WRITER

A new Livonia company is using resources in India and the United States to help lawyers write briefs and conduct legal research.

LegalEase Solutions is an attorney-support enterprise that enables lawyers to outsource time-consuming tasks. Partners Tariq Hafeez, an attorney, and Tariq Akbar, with an engineering and business background, hope their business will flourish with the forecasted growth of such legal services.

"We're not competition for attorneys, we're a support system for attorneys and work only for them," said Hafeez, who once worked for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.

"I know outsourcing is a bad word to some, especially here in Michigan, but legal outsourcing is different," Hafeez, 28, added. "We're helping attorneys in this country do more, increase their client capacity and increase their business."

The one-year-old company relocated from their homes in Canton to a Livonia office three months ago in the Five Mile-Farmington area.

The duo, who have been friends for 15 years and both have family in India, coordinate a team of seven full-time, India-based attorneys and six contracted U.S.-based attorneys for the outsourced legal tasks. With their staffs on opposite ends of the planet, this enables LegalEase Solutions to staff a 24-hour work force. So far, the company has handled tasks for 33 clients in 12 states.

The company's primary services include legal research and writing, pre-litigation support, preparation of trial and appellate-level pleadings and briefs, documentary review, discovery and patent services.

"We have bright attorneys who offer convenience and quality," Akbar, 30, said. "We can hit the ground running, with little direction, and turnaround these tasks in a short period of time and save our clients hundreds of hours of work."

So far, LegalEase Solutions primarily works with small law offices. The company's contract work enables these firms to save on the expense of hiring a full-time associate.

"We just help them out as they need us," Hafeez said. "They only have to pay for services as they need them."

The duo hopes to grow their business by networking at attorney conferences across the country, contacts via their Web site (www.lgles.com) and by advertising in legal publications.
They also lean on their clients to promote them through word of mouth.

"We have to nurture these relationships to grow," Akbar said. "Building that trust with our clients will help us do that."