24 Nov 2008, Manoj Mitta, TNN
While BPO companies are feeling the heat of the global meltdown and resorting to layoffs and other cost cutting measures, their LPO
(legal process outsourcing) counterparts are thriving like never before because of the legal activity that has been generated by the sub-prime crisis in US. What is more, the LPO segment reflects the prevailing boom in the legal services industry in India. Law firms dealing with foreign companies operating in India have also seen an increase in their turnover, even if their work is now more about post-meltdown issues like restructuring, downsizing, layoffs, closure of branches, winding up of subsidiaries and termination notices to collaborators and franchisees. Take the example of Delhi-based Titus & Co, whose clientele consists almost entirely of foreign companies and governments. Its managing partner Diljeet Titus said, "We have had at least a 50% rise in the volume of transactional work ever since Lehman Brothers imploded two months ago." Since these transactions are mostly related to cost-cutting measures, Titus did his bit for his clients by offering a 20% discount in his fee. "The reduction in our fee is made up for by the increase in the quantum of work as well as the dollar rate," he added. Fox Mandal Little, the largest law firm in the country, displays more signs of it being business-as-usual. In the last two months, it has recruited 27 more lawyers at various levels, opened its 13th office (which is in Kochi) and forged ahead with negotiations to acquire another law firm. It is poised to recruit more lawyers for its recently launched LPO subsidiary, Legal Circle. The firm's managing partner Som Mandal said, "We are most bullish about our LPO because of the sheer deluge of enquiries we have received from US to do litigation support from India." The timing of the meltdown could not have been better for LPO companies as the e-discovery law, governing the storage and management of electronic data that might be relevant to litigation, came into effect in US only two years ago. The meltdown has forced more American companies to turn to LPO set-ups in India for help because of the enormous cost differential. For performing document review, a key aspect of the e-discovery process, a senior associate in US is paid $200-300 per hour while an LPO based in India charges barely $25-30 per hour for the same work, according to Mandal's estimate. Not surprisingly, Pangea3, one of India's largest LPO companies, claims to have registered 100% increase in volumes in the last six months. "We are witnessing an extraordinary influx of work directly or indirectly related to the sub-prime crisis," said CEO Sanjay Kamlani. The surge in Pangea3's e-discovery work involves court disputes among investors, lenders, borrowers, homeowners and banks. Post-meltdown, it is also cashing in on the demand for greater scrutiny of financial transactions and corporate governance. As Pangea3 CEO Sanjay Kamlani put it, "cost cutting measures have spared budgets only for non-discretionary items like legal services related to litigations and regulatory compliance. While BPOs must deal with delayed decision making, uncertainty and wait for new government policies in US, LPOs grow business almost as a function of the slowdown." For all the surge in business for LPOs and law firms, there is one part of the legal services industry that seems to have remained relatively unaffected: the vast majority of individual lawyers involved in litigation within the country. P H Parekh, president of Supreme Court bar association, dismissed the suggestion that senior advocates like him were under pressure to accept a fee cut in view of the economic slump. "The demand for top lawyers is so high and the supply of them so little, the worst that may happen is that the number of briefs we return for want of time may come down," Parekh said.
“ The above article has been reprinted from ://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Legal_eagles_soar_as_markets_crash/articleshow/3748948.cms and LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”.
Monday, December 22, 2008
In downturn, litigation bonanza for Indian legal outsourcers
Posted: Wed, Nov 26 2008.
In downturn, litigation bonanza for Indian legal outsourcers
Aruna Viswanatha
New Delhi: Amid talk of job cuts and lower-than-expected results, legal offshorers based in India say they are bucking the trend.
If the first wave of work for legal process outsourcing companies earlier this year stemmed from the rise in US lawsuits related to the subprime mortgage meltdown, the latest wave builds on that, but is also tied even more directly to the crisis; Indian legal outsourcers are now processing American foreclosures, and valuing the toxic assets at the heart of the trouble.
New opportunities: Bangalore-based Clutch Group. Legal offshorers are now getting work valuing toxic assets and processing home foreclosures. Hemant Mishra / MintThe US treasury department’s $700 billion (Rs35 trillion now) plan to purchase troubled assets from the ailing financial institutions and directly take stakes in the banks is, as expected, a boon for attorneys. What wasn’t expected is just how much of it might move offshore.
“In the short to medium term, there is rising litigation, the valuation of assets in the bailout package, bankruptcy, and it’s coming from all sides,” says Anand Sharma, chief financial officer at the legal services provider, Computer Patent Annuities Ltd (CPA). “Forget about cost arbitrage, I don’t think the US is capable of handling this entire work.”
Indian firms are grabbing pieces of it.
One newer player in the industry, UnitedLex Corp., says it has grown by 400% this year in staffing, from 98 people at the end of last year to some 520 now, with plans to expand to 1,000 by March. Another firm, Pangea3 Llc., says its revenues doubled in size in the first quarter, and doubled again since then. CPA, too, says it grew revenues by 30% this quarter from the corresponding period last year, while Mumbai-based Mindcrest Inc. says it grew 45-50% since April. Revenues for the Bangalore-based Clutch Group Llc., the company says, have doubled this year.
The entire industry reported revenues of $225 million (or Rs902 crore then) in 2007, and is expected to generate revenues of around $640 million by end-2010, according to the research firm ValueNotes Database Pvt. Ltd.
Much of the work specifically tied to the bailout package is yet to come, and will likely start in early 2009. But firms have already started handling related reviews of bank assets. UnitedLex, for example, has seen this area of its business grow by 50% since late March, according to Ajay Agrawal, founder and chief solutions officer. “There are millions of assets shuffling hands, and a lot of work,” says Agrawal, who specialized in asset-backed securities as a lawyer in the US.
It’s not just the highly technical work of reviewing complex derivatives that offshorers are gunning for. Home foreclosures and individual bankruptcies have generally been processed by local lawyers. Bits of the work, on loans held by banks with captive centres in India, have previously moved offshore. But now, with almost 280,000 foreclosures in October alone according to RealtyTrac Inc., up 25% from the same month last year, and up 5% from the month before, even after several states mandated delays on foreclosures, the momentum for offshoring has clearly been building up.
“Volume is a huge driver over the past 18 months, and it still has not plateaued,” says Agrawal, who claims that the foreclosure and bankruptcy processing business at UnitedLex took off at the beginning of the year, and has doubled every quarter since.
Bangalore-based Clutch Group is aggressively pitching itself for a newer piece of this market on foreclosures, one that requires court intervention and typically hasn’t come offshore yet. Lenders spend around $1,000 on this type of foreclosure in the US, and the firm estimates that around 60% of the work done before the lawyers file the case is now segregated and can be brought to India.
The firm is in trial runs with a few clients, according to Clutch Group CEO Abhi Shah. “In the next three-six months, it will be substantial,” he says. “Based on the volume of foreclosures for the past five years, it’s a 45-degree arrow going to the right.”
Foreclosure processing aside, much of the anticipated legal business falls under the larger umbrella of “risk assessment”. Pangea3’s co-chief executive Sanjay Kamlani describes one long-standing technology client who tapped the firm to review all of its customer agreements to assess the likelihood of termination, and what might occur in a change of control. The firm did the same on 25,000 open contracts for another telecom client, he says.
And just over the horizon, once US President-elect Barack Obama takes office in late January, observers expect new regulations overhauling accounting and disclosure requirements for public companies; another legal bonanza that offshore providers are gearing up for.
But the bulk of legal outsourcing revenue is still from the labour-intensive document review projects that any large litigation requires, and interest in outsourcing that work is following a well-trodden route.
Shah describes one large law firm client that signed on with Clutch Group for an 80-attorney document review on a case related to the financial crisis, but kept it on shore. Three months into the project, as cost shot up, the firm tested Indian waters and moved five attorneys offshore. Three weeks later, the number doubled to 10, and two months later, it tripled to 30.
“Before, clients had the luxury of saying, ‘This is interesting, let’s think about it,’” says Shah. “But then they spent $500 million (on a legal budget), they can’t do that any more, and the stakes are higher.”
“ The above article has been reprinted from http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/26010816/In-downturn-litigation-bonanz.html and LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”.
In downturn, litigation bonanza for Indian legal outsourcers
Aruna Viswanatha
New Delhi: Amid talk of job cuts and lower-than-expected results, legal offshorers based in India say they are bucking the trend.
If the first wave of work for legal process outsourcing companies earlier this year stemmed from the rise in US lawsuits related to the subprime mortgage meltdown, the latest wave builds on that, but is also tied even more directly to the crisis; Indian legal outsourcers are now processing American foreclosures, and valuing the toxic assets at the heart of the trouble.
New opportunities: Bangalore-based Clutch Group. Legal offshorers are now getting work valuing toxic assets and processing home foreclosures. Hemant Mishra / MintThe US treasury department’s $700 billion (Rs35 trillion now) plan to purchase troubled assets from the ailing financial institutions and directly take stakes in the banks is, as expected, a boon for attorneys. What wasn’t expected is just how much of it might move offshore.
“In the short to medium term, there is rising litigation, the valuation of assets in the bailout package, bankruptcy, and it’s coming from all sides,” says Anand Sharma, chief financial officer at the legal services provider, Computer Patent Annuities Ltd (CPA). “Forget about cost arbitrage, I don’t think the US is capable of handling this entire work.”
Indian firms are grabbing pieces of it.
One newer player in the industry, UnitedLex Corp., says it has grown by 400% this year in staffing, from 98 people at the end of last year to some 520 now, with plans to expand to 1,000 by March. Another firm, Pangea3 Llc., says its revenues doubled in size in the first quarter, and doubled again since then. CPA, too, says it grew revenues by 30% this quarter from the corresponding period last year, while Mumbai-based Mindcrest Inc. says it grew 45-50% since April. Revenues for the Bangalore-based Clutch Group Llc., the company says, have doubled this year.
The entire industry reported revenues of $225 million (or Rs902 crore then) in 2007, and is expected to generate revenues of around $640 million by end-2010, according to the research firm ValueNotes Database Pvt. Ltd.
Much of the work specifically tied to the bailout package is yet to come, and will likely start in early 2009. But firms have already started handling related reviews of bank assets. UnitedLex, for example, has seen this area of its business grow by 50% since late March, according to Ajay Agrawal, founder and chief solutions officer. “There are millions of assets shuffling hands, and a lot of work,” says Agrawal, who specialized in asset-backed securities as a lawyer in the US.
It’s not just the highly technical work of reviewing complex derivatives that offshorers are gunning for. Home foreclosures and individual bankruptcies have generally been processed by local lawyers. Bits of the work, on loans held by banks with captive centres in India, have previously moved offshore. But now, with almost 280,000 foreclosures in October alone according to RealtyTrac Inc., up 25% from the same month last year, and up 5% from the month before, even after several states mandated delays on foreclosures, the momentum for offshoring has clearly been building up.
“Volume is a huge driver over the past 18 months, and it still has not plateaued,” says Agrawal, who claims that the foreclosure and bankruptcy processing business at UnitedLex took off at the beginning of the year, and has doubled every quarter since.
Bangalore-based Clutch Group is aggressively pitching itself for a newer piece of this market on foreclosures, one that requires court intervention and typically hasn’t come offshore yet. Lenders spend around $1,000 on this type of foreclosure in the US, and the firm estimates that around 60% of the work done before the lawyers file the case is now segregated and can be brought to India.
The firm is in trial runs with a few clients, according to Clutch Group CEO Abhi Shah. “In the next three-six months, it will be substantial,” he says. “Based on the volume of foreclosures for the past five years, it’s a 45-degree arrow going to the right.”
Foreclosure processing aside, much of the anticipated legal business falls under the larger umbrella of “risk assessment”. Pangea3’s co-chief executive Sanjay Kamlani describes one long-standing technology client who tapped the firm to review all of its customer agreements to assess the likelihood of termination, and what might occur in a change of control. The firm did the same on 25,000 open contracts for another telecom client, he says.
And just over the horizon, once US President-elect Barack Obama takes office in late January, observers expect new regulations overhauling accounting and disclosure requirements for public companies; another legal bonanza that offshore providers are gearing up for.
But the bulk of legal outsourcing revenue is still from the labour-intensive document review projects that any large litigation requires, and interest in outsourcing that work is following a well-trodden route.
Shah describes one large law firm client that signed on with Clutch Group for an 80-attorney document review on a case related to the financial crisis, but kept it on shore. Three months into the project, as cost shot up, the firm tested Indian waters and moved five attorneys offshore. Three weeks later, the number doubled to 10, and two months later, it tripled to 30.
“Before, clients had the luxury of saying, ‘This is interesting, let’s think about it,’” says Shah. “But then they spent $500 million (on a legal budget), they can’t do that any more, and the stakes are higher.”
“ The above article has been reprinted from http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/26010816/In-downturn-litigation-bonanz.html and LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”.
Monday, November 03, 2008
LegalEase Solutions LLC among the Top 50 Emerging Companies in the United States-FundingPost
Michigan based LegalEase Solutions LLC, was adjudged as one among the Top 50 Emerging companies at the 5th Annual Pitch Across America Competition held by FundingPost."We are proud to have LegalEase as a winner of this year's competition," said Joe Rubin, Director FundingPost. "Their blended model efficiently provides needed services to an expansive market. We expect to hear a lot of good news from them in the coming months." LegalEase provides superior legal support services onshore and offshore enabling corporate legal departments and law firms to become more cost efficient and effective. The Company with five offices world over works virtually 24hrs and is driven by its huge emphasis on quality confidentiality and information security.
The winners are adjudged by FundingPost's 130+ judges' panel consisting of angel and venture investors. The Largest Venture competition ever hosted evaluates the companies on a 1 to 10 scale (10 being the best) and takes important parameters like professionalism development (customers and Revenue), competitive advantage, etc.., into account. FundingPost, the largest Venture Exchange acts as the connecting point between venture capitalists and Entrepreneurs for over seven and half years. FundingPost has had the opportunities to work with thousands of Angel and Venture Capital Investors over the past representing over $102.96 Billion.
Commenting on the win LegalEase Solution's CEO,Mr. Tariq M. Akbar said "I am glad that our focus on quality, processes and delivery has made us a clear leader with our growing client base and now the investment community with this recognition from Funding Post."
The winners are adjudged by FundingPost's 130+ judges' panel consisting of angel and venture investors. The Largest Venture competition ever hosted evaluates the companies on a 1 to 10 scale (10 being the best) and takes important parameters like professionalism development (customers and Revenue), competitive advantage, etc.., into account. FundingPost, the largest Venture Exchange acts as the connecting point between venture capitalists and Entrepreneurs for over seven and half years. FundingPost has had the opportunities to work with thousands of Angel and Venture Capital Investors over the past representing over $102.96 Billion.
Commenting on the win LegalEase Solution's CEO,Mr. Tariq M. Akbar said "I am glad that our focus on quality, processes and delivery has made us a clear leader with our growing client base and now the investment community with this recognition from Funding Post."
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
An interesting post
I thought this person had their perspective and apprehensions right on
Just reproducing from their blog. LegalEase has no right over the below material.
Life in a LPO
http://bangalorebrouhaha.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/life-in-a-lpo/
When I arrived in Bangalore two years ago I thought that the legal outsourcing craze was going to offer the perfect fit for me professionally. Before arriving I had contacted a small LPO based in the US and in Bangalore. I was offered a job and I eagerly looked forward to jumping in. On my first day of work I was told their manager was retiring and I was offered a position running the whole show. I was flattered, excited and very, very naive! I really had no idea what running such a project would entail.
Let me give you a little summary of what an LPO is. Basically, legal outsourcing is supposed to be a way for American and UK firms to cut costs for their clients by utilizing the English speaking, common-law based Indian attorneys who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar. Theoretically, it should be fine. It has worked in so many other fields. Outsourcing has basically built Bangalore and the spectacular successes of outsourcing firms are legendary. Unfortunately, the concept does not actually translate that well into legal work. Some firms are content with low level document processing and review. That kind of work is probably perfect for the LPO model. However other firms are trying to break into research and drafting of documents and that is where the entire LPO model looks very shaky. The very basic reason is that a person graduating from and Indian law school (except for one or two) really does not have the qualifications, the background, the knowledge or the ability to produce work that looks like it was produced by an American attorney. There is no emphasis on writing in Indian law schools.
What LPOs tend to do is to hire a few people who graduated from US law schools or who have practical experience working abroad. Those people are put in charge of a few more people who graduated from Indian law schools. These “teams” are supposed to work on projects from the US and return a document that meets US standards. In reality, the people in charge of the team end up either doing most of the work themselves or spending inordinate amounts of time correcting and editing the work of the teammates.
There are companies that are now training Indian lawyers for the LPO industry. This is a great idea. The problem is most LPOs feel they can do the training in-house. I just am not sure if you can impart an American legal education in a series of one-hour lectures over a few months!
There was great hope for the LPO industry. Some of the big outsourcing companies were talking about jumping in. I was told by one company that they hoped to hire 2000 attorneys over the next two years. That was a year ago and from what I hear, they don’t have more than a skeleton staff still. It is very hard to find qualified people and more difficult to keep qualified people.
Just reproducing from their blog. LegalEase has no right over the below material.
Life in a LPO
http://bangalorebrouhaha.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/life-in-a-lpo/
When I arrived in Bangalore two years ago I thought that the legal outsourcing craze was going to offer the perfect fit for me professionally. Before arriving I had contacted a small LPO based in the US and in Bangalore. I was offered a job and I eagerly looked forward to jumping in. On my first day of work I was told their manager was retiring and I was offered a position running the whole show. I was flattered, excited and very, very naive! I really had no idea what running such a project would entail.
Let me give you a little summary of what an LPO is. Basically, legal outsourcing is supposed to be a way for American and UK firms to cut costs for their clients by utilizing the English speaking, common-law based Indian attorneys who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar. Theoretically, it should be fine. It has worked in so many other fields. Outsourcing has basically built Bangalore and the spectacular successes of outsourcing firms are legendary. Unfortunately, the concept does not actually translate that well into legal work. Some firms are content with low level document processing and review. That kind of work is probably perfect for the LPO model. However other firms are trying to break into research and drafting of documents and that is where the entire LPO model looks very shaky. The very basic reason is that a person graduating from and Indian law school (except for one or two) really does not have the qualifications, the background, the knowledge or the ability to produce work that looks like it was produced by an American attorney. There is no emphasis on writing in Indian law schools.
What LPOs tend to do is to hire a few people who graduated from US law schools or who have practical experience working abroad. Those people are put in charge of a few more people who graduated from Indian law schools. These “teams” are supposed to work on projects from the US and return a document that meets US standards. In reality, the people in charge of the team end up either doing most of the work themselves or spending inordinate amounts of time correcting and editing the work of the teammates.
There are companies that are now training Indian lawyers for the LPO industry. This is a great idea. The problem is most LPOs feel they can do the training in-house. I just am not sure if you can impart an American legal education in a series of one-hour lectures over a few months!
There was great hope for the LPO industry. Some of the big outsourcing companies were talking about jumping in. I was told by one company that they hoped to hire 2000 attorneys over the next two years. That was a year ago and from what I hear, they don’t have more than a skeleton staff still. It is very hard to find qualified people and more difficult to keep qualified people.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Sun Microsystems Legal Outsourcing Approach
Introduction
Connie Brenton, Assistant General Counsel for Sun Microsystems recently presented at the IAOP Legal Outsourcing Chapter's second session. She presented Sun's approach to legal outsourcing and how they actualized real benefits through their foray
Findings
Some key points from her presentation were:
- They started in 2005. From then to now, there has been a marked difference in how the market and talent pool has matured
- They did not just assign a project and wait for results. They provided a project manager, training, templates, assessed the cost of completing the assignment completely onshore and set a target for their savings margin they needed to achieve to make this effort worthwhile
- They used an innovative methods to evaluate the offshore bidders for the project and did not base it solely on price. They did not pick the lowest bid
- They use multiple offshore vendors so as to minimize their dependence on just one provider
- To quote Connie, their cost savings and benefit from using an offshore vendor to complete their project was wildly successful.
Recommendations
Some of our own recommendations to add to the above are:
- look for sufficient onshore support while rolling projects out. A blended model of onshore/ offshore resources works best
- run pilots to asses the complexity and scope of projects before assigning any expectations
- not all types of legal work can or should be offshored
- look for the cost savings as a percentage of the onshore spend
Conclusion
In conclusion, legal outsourcing is a tried and tested method to manage some of corporate counsel's spend on outside counsel. It's time corporate counsel start to leverage its advantages
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
REDEFINING BOUNDARIES; REDEFINING LEGAL SERVICES
Legal Outsourcing is a nascent industry, which optimizes the modern day technology advantage by converging talents worldwide for providing globalized legal solutions. For many, legal outsourcing still means transcription, updating legal databases and quasi-legal functions like litigation support for multinationals. But many companies offer premium legal support solutions including drafting of trial and appellate briefs, pleadings and research memoranda at a fraction of the cost that typical US law firms would charge. Legal Process Outsourcing throws open endless possibilities by optimizing technology and talents.
In an industry where time is money, what would be an easy solution for a bizarre legal issue regarding recognition of a foreign court’s judgment in another sovereign state? You may either want to reinvent the wheel doing all the research yourself, surfing through an endless list of precedents which, at times may only remotely agree to your point and you have only four days at your disposal. All other assignments demanding your immediate attention may have to be kicked to the backburner and obviously, this means loss of productive hours and in turn loss of time, money and energy. Or, in the alternative, simply outsource your problem to an LPO! This is exactly what a Canadian client did and we, at LegalEase got an amazing opportunity to be part of an assignment of global ramifications.
The issue involved the determination rights of an estranged couple, entangled in the laws of two independent sovereign states, UK and Canada. It was an uneasy terrain since international law and treaties applicable to the case turned out to be an amorphous baggage of provisions with less binding effect, even on concurring states. In fact, finding the right statute and case laws was something like searching for a needle in the haystack. Yet, we managed to finish the research in a flash turn around time of four working days, drafting a perfect case for the client with adequate statutory and legal backing for the recognition of UK bankruptcy judgments in Canada. The opposite party, on reading the memo prepared by LegalEase Solutions abandoned his plans to proceed against our client and opted for an out-of-the court settlement entirely on our client’s terms!
LPOs like LegalEase employ talent from the cream of the crop for providing legal support services to clients worldwide. The company employs world class technology and makes use of encrypted secure network for data transmission to allay the apprehensions of offshore clients regarding confidentiality. Legal Outsourcing is poised for a steady growth as burgeoning market provides ample scope for diversification. LegalEase is providing a bunch of value–added services ranging from high-end research and drafting to support services like document review, contract drafting, lease abstraction, summarization of pre-trial documents, legal coding and analyzing and has much more are in the offing. Of course, the global legal landscape has changed as never before and remedy for complex legal issues are just a mouse click away.
Author: Seema Sarathkumar
Associate, LegalEase Solutions, Kochi. India.
In an industry where time is money, what would be an easy solution for a bizarre legal issue regarding recognition of a foreign court’s judgment in another sovereign state? You may either want to reinvent the wheel doing all the research yourself, surfing through an endless list of precedents which, at times may only remotely agree to your point and you have only four days at your disposal. All other assignments demanding your immediate attention may have to be kicked to the backburner and obviously, this means loss of productive hours and in turn loss of time, money and energy. Or, in the alternative, simply outsource your problem to an LPO! This is exactly what a Canadian client did and we, at LegalEase got an amazing opportunity to be part of an assignment of global ramifications.
The issue involved the determination rights of an estranged couple, entangled in the laws of two independent sovereign states, UK and Canada. It was an uneasy terrain since international law and treaties applicable to the case turned out to be an amorphous baggage of provisions with less binding effect, even on concurring states. In fact, finding the right statute and case laws was something like searching for a needle in the haystack. Yet, we managed to finish the research in a flash turn around time of four working days, drafting a perfect case for the client with adequate statutory and legal backing for the recognition of UK bankruptcy judgments in Canada. The opposite party, on reading the memo prepared by LegalEase Solutions abandoned his plans to proceed against our client and opted for an out-of-the court settlement entirely on our client’s terms!
LPOs like LegalEase employ talent from the cream of the crop for providing legal support services to clients worldwide. The company employs world class technology and makes use of encrypted secure network for data transmission to allay the apprehensions of offshore clients regarding confidentiality. Legal Outsourcing is poised for a steady growth as burgeoning market provides ample scope for diversification. LegalEase is providing a bunch of value–added services ranging from high-end research and drafting to support services like document review, contract drafting, lease abstraction, summarization of pre-trial documents, legal coding and analyzing and has much more are in the offing. Of course, the global legal landscape has changed as never before and remedy for complex legal issues are just a mouse click away.
Author: Seema Sarathkumar
Associate, LegalEase Solutions, Kochi. India.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
LEGAL SOLUTIONS AT 'EASE'
LEGAL SOLUTIONS AT ‘EASE’
The legal industry has seen a sea of change with Legal Process Outsourcing emerging as a necessity for legal departments and law firms to cut costs and stay competitive. After the laudatory BPO success, India, with its huge pool of English speaking and common law system trained lawyers, is treading fast toward becoming the global leader in the LPO sector, and by 2015, the LPO sector is expected to be worth $3 billion with India stealing 60% of the market.
Legal services continue to be less affordable with law firms increasing their billable rates every year in the Western nations. Especially in the US, global corporations are realizing that in order to survive heavy competition, the need of the hour is to keep their legal costs tight, while continuing to combat the increasing amount of litigation they face. In order to face this challenge, Legal profession as such is undergoing a transition, depending heavily on LPOs for support. At this juncture, LegalEase has gained timely market recognition as the leading LPO provider.
LegalEase Solutions is a Michigan based legal outsourcing company with significant experience and expertise in the legal and business fields. The company began its operation in India with 5 employees at Cochin in November, 2005. At present, LegalEase has three offices world-wide, in Michigan, Chennai and Cochin, and has clients in 38 States in US, in Canada and the U.K. The company’s clientele includes experienced solo practitioners, reputed law firms, major automobile manufacturing companies, insurance companies, Fortune 500 and Global 2000 legal departments, large legal auditing and analysis firms etc.
To quote Tariq Hafeez, the Founder cum President of and General Counsel for LegalEase Solutions LLC, “our mission is to help lawyers and departments become more competitive, efficient and cost effective by providing high quality, accurate and affordable legal products and services. Further, the company aims at making a difference in the global communities it operates by providing opportunity and leveraging our expertise in the legal field to make a social impact.”
LegalEase offers various legal technology products and support via its strategic partnerships which include:
· Legal research and writing
· Transactional work
· Document review
· Litigation support
According to Tariq Akbar, CEO of LegalEase, “there are enough reasons why the clients can expect top notch quality from the company. LegalEase uses a blended model to provide its services. Experienced US attorneys control all projects through their lifecycles while Indian offices provide them with all support they might need. Attorneys in India are given intensive training on US law and use of online tools such as Lexis Nexis before any work is allotted to them. Once the work is done by the Indian attorneys, the finished product is reviewed by the US attorneys. All products citing case law will be accompanied by a list of shepardized cases so that one can always be certain that the cases are good law. Further, all information from clients is collected using standardized templates and exchanged via secure encrypted mail, avoiding any concern over security issues.”
A recent research memo prepared by LegalEase on the recognition of UK bankruptcy judgment in Canada speaks volumes on how big a role LPOs like LegalEase can play in the global legal scenario. The Legal Memorandum prepared by LegalEase facilitated a speedy out-of-court settlement between a divorced UK citizen, declared as bankrupt by the UK bankruptcy court, and a Canadian lady, in a suit filed by the lady before the Canadian court. The Canadian law firm representing the husband contacted LegalEase US, which in turn, sent the matter to its office in India. Though the case presented uneasy factual conundrum where the subject matter was intertwined by the laws of two independent sovereign nations, LegalEase managed to prepare the research memo in a quick turnaround time of 4 working days. The research finding by LegalEase practically sealed the opposite party’s case since statutes and precedents provided ample authority for recognition of UK bankruptcy judgment in Canada. Interestingly, reading the memo prepared by LegalEase Solutions, the opposite party opted for an out-of-court settlement. In an industry where time is money, it is amazing that a Legal Outsourcing Company could provide premium legal support solutions like this to busy lawyers in record time. Obviously, LPO’s like LegalEase can afford the top notch technology and make use of talents worldwide.
LegalEase’s progress has been the result of a concerted effort of the company’s employees, management, Board of Advisors, and especially clients, for their continuing faith in the quality of the legal support provided by the company. According to Seema Sarathkumar, Associate, LegalEase, Cochin, “At LegalEase, training is not just provided at the beginning, but is an ever-going process.” “At LegalEase, we work together as a family, upholding our motto, “Think Forward; Think One” which helps us stay focused on what we do, and interestingly, the company probably has the lowest rate of employee attrition among Indian LPOs” says Pooja Mohan, Manager of Operations, LegalEase, Cochin.
In this era, where legal profession is set for a major change, LPOs like LegalEase have a promising future. The clients started realizing that they can get better legal service from LPOs at a much lower cost than that of traditional law firms. LPO is emerging as an attractive proposition not only for outside corporations, but also for domestic entrepreneurs. Commoditization and standardization of legal services being the modern ‘mantra’, LPOs can play a much bigger role in the coming years.
The time is not far when LPOs like LegalEase, with its judicious blending of legal cost with time, productivity and quality, come to the forefront of the mind of clients when they seek quality legal service. The client testimonials underscore the progress that LegalEase has made so far in the industry. Clients have begun to perceive LPOs as future legal support providers, and indeed, we look forward to the future and move ahead, with elan.
MANOJ.P.M.
(The author holds Masters Degree in Commercial Law and is presently working as Junior Associate at Legalease Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. Cochin.)
The legal industry has seen a sea of change with Legal Process Outsourcing emerging as a necessity for legal departments and law firms to cut costs and stay competitive. After the laudatory BPO success, India, with its huge pool of English speaking and common law system trained lawyers, is treading fast toward becoming the global leader in the LPO sector, and by 2015, the LPO sector is expected to be worth $3 billion with India stealing 60% of the market.
Legal services continue to be less affordable with law firms increasing their billable rates every year in the Western nations. Especially in the US, global corporations are realizing that in order to survive heavy competition, the need of the hour is to keep their legal costs tight, while continuing to combat the increasing amount of litigation they face. In order to face this challenge, Legal profession as such is undergoing a transition, depending heavily on LPOs for support. At this juncture, LegalEase has gained timely market recognition as the leading LPO provider.
LegalEase Solutions is a Michigan based legal outsourcing company with significant experience and expertise in the legal and business fields. The company began its operation in India with 5 employees at Cochin in November, 2005. At present, LegalEase has three offices world-wide, in Michigan, Chennai and Cochin, and has clients in 38 States in US, in Canada and the U.K. The company’s clientele includes experienced solo practitioners, reputed law firms, major automobile manufacturing companies, insurance companies, Fortune 500 and Global 2000 legal departments, large legal auditing and analysis firms etc.
To quote Tariq Hafeez, the Founder cum President of and General Counsel for LegalEase Solutions LLC, “our mission is to help lawyers and departments become more competitive, efficient and cost effective by providing high quality, accurate and affordable legal products and services. Further, the company aims at making a difference in the global communities it operates by providing opportunity and leveraging our expertise in the legal field to make a social impact.”
LegalEase offers various legal technology products and support via its strategic partnerships which include:
· Legal research and writing
· Transactional work
· Document review
· Litigation support
According to Tariq Akbar, CEO of LegalEase, “there are enough reasons why the clients can expect top notch quality from the company. LegalEase uses a blended model to provide its services. Experienced US attorneys control all projects through their lifecycles while Indian offices provide them with all support they might need. Attorneys in India are given intensive training on US law and use of online tools such as Lexis Nexis before any work is allotted to them. Once the work is done by the Indian attorneys, the finished product is reviewed by the US attorneys. All products citing case law will be accompanied by a list of shepardized cases so that one can always be certain that the cases are good law. Further, all information from clients is collected using standardized templates and exchanged via secure encrypted mail, avoiding any concern over security issues.”
A recent research memo prepared by LegalEase on the recognition of UK bankruptcy judgment in Canada speaks volumes on how big a role LPOs like LegalEase can play in the global legal scenario. The Legal Memorandum prepared by LegalEase facilitated a speedy out-of-court settlement between a divorced UK citizen, declared as bankrupt by the UK bankruptcy court, and a Canadian lady, in a suit filed by the lady before the Canadian court. The Canadian law firm representing the husband contacted LegalEase US, which in turn, sent the matter to its office in India. Though the case presented uneasy factual conundrum where the subject matter was intertwined by the laws of two independent sovereign nations, LegalEase managed to prepare the research memo in a quick turnaround time of 4 working days. The research finding by LegalEase practically sealed the opposite party’s case since statutes and precedents provided ample authority for recognition of UK bankruptcy judgment in Canada. Interestingly, reading the memo prepared by LegalEase Solutions, the opposite party opted for an out-of-court settlement. In an industry where time is money, it is amazing that a Legal Outsourcing Company could provide premium legal support solutions like this to busy lawyers in record time. Obviously, LPO’s like LegalEase can afford the top notch technology and make use of talents worldwide.
LegalEase’s progress has been the result of a concerted effort of the company’s employees, management, Board of Advisors, and especially clients, for their continuing faith in the quality of the legal support provided by the company. According to Seema Sarathkumar, Associate, LegalEase, Cochin, “At LegalEase, training is not just provided at the beginning, but is an ever-going process.” “At LegalEase, we work together as a family, upholding our motto, “Think Forward; Think One” which helps us stay focused on what we do, and interestingly, the company probably has the lowest rate of employee attrition among Indian LPOs” says Pooja Mohan, Manager of Operations, LegalEase, Cochin.
In this era, where legal profession is set for a major change, LPOs like LegalEase have a promising future. The clients started realizing that they can get better legal service from LPOs at a much lower cost than that of traditional law firms. LPO is emerging as an attractive proposition not only for outside corporations, but also for domestic entrepreneurs. Commoditization and standardization of legal services being the modern ‘mantra’, LPOs can play a much bigger role in the coming years.
The time is not far when LPOs like LegalEase, with its judicious blending of legal cost with time, productivity and quality, come to the forefront of the mind of clients when they seek quality legal service. The client testimonials underscore the progress that LegalEase has made so far in the industry. Clients have begun to perceive LPOs as future legal support providers, and indeed, we look forward to the future and move ahead, with elan.
MANOJ.P.M.
(The author holds Masters Degree in Commercial Law and is presently working as Junior Associate at Legalease Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. Cochin.)
Friday, May 23, 2008
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO): 2007 And Beyond
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO): 2007 And Beyond
Rajashree on -->20 Feb 2008
Over the course of the last couple of years leading law firms have begun to wake up to the reality that we live and operate in a global marketplace. Technology enables an increasing array of legal support services and higher value legal work to be outsourced offshore. The legal profession is now starting to take advantage of the labor arbitrage that has been exploited by other industries for well over a decade. Throughout 2006 and 2007 the offshore legal outsourcing market also witnessed the entry of some of the world’s largest Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) companies together with a significant level of venture capital and private equity funding.
This article will examine the driving forces behind the emergence of the LPO industry and how it has developed over the last few years. I will also be offering some insight into the direction the industry will take in 2008 and beyond. Finally, I intend to take a more detailed look at the impact that the recently passed UK Legal Services Bill will have on the offshore legal outsourcing market. I am both delighted and fortunate to have contributions to this article from Ron Friedman, Senior Vice President, Marketing at Integreon (http://integreon.com/) and Neeraja Kandala, Senior Research Analyst with ValueNotes (http://www.valuenotes.biz/).
The Driving Forces
The demand for lower cost legal services resulted directly from increasingly cost-conscious U.S. and U.K. corporate clients. The difference between the law and other industries is that outsourcing in the legal market has been client rather than industry driven. In the legal profession, it was not law firms, but corporate legal departments that were the early proponents of the benefits of legal outsourcing. These major corporate clients are now increasing the pressure on their law firms to offer an alternative solution. Historically major law firms on both sides of the Atlantic achieved huge levels of profitability through leveraging their junior associates. The Los Angeles Daily Journal announced earlier this year that pay scales for first-year attorneys rose yet again with a number of firms hitting a staggering $160,000 annual starting salary. Law firm leaders insist that these increases have resulted from U.S. domestic economic forces, necessitating a policy of “Keeping up with the Joneses” in order to retain the top law school talent. The fully loaded cost to the firm of a junior associate at these salary levels will be in excess of $250,000 per annum. Partners look to bill these associates out at hourly rates of $300- $400 plus per hour. These rates simply do not wash any more with major corporate clients when it comes to routine level legal support work such as basic document drafting, litigation support or document review. Over the course of the last 12 months I have spoken to senior executives and managing partners at major law firms who have been advised in no uncertain terms that to retain their corporate client business they must cut their legal fees and offer an offshore alternative. KPMG has estimated that document review can account for between 58% and 90% of the total cost of litigation, and corporate clients view this type of legal work as routine. Law firms are being compelled by their clients to consider offshore outsourcing as a viable strategic solution. 2007 was the year that corporate clients confirmed they were no longer prepared simply to sign a blank check when it comes to paying their attorney’s bills.
Consolidation and Maturation of the industry
Since 2003, in India alone the number of companies offering legal process outsourcing services to both corporations and U.S. and U.K. law firms has grown to well over 100. For further information on the growing number of companies offering offshore legal services check out Ron Friedman and Joy London’s updated list at http://www.prismlegal.com/index.php?option=content&task=viewid=88&Itemid=70#List and the July 2007 ValueNotes report Offshoring Legal Services to India: an Update http://www.sourcingnotes.com/content/view/71/54/.
If 2007 can be categorized as the year when the number of LPO players across India exploded and major law firms began to explore the labor arbitrage benefits available through outsourcing offshore, then the picture will start to change again in 2008. Even while a large number of “mom and pop shops” were clinging on to the major players’ coat tails and jumping on the LPO bandwagon there was evidence of consolidation. This will only increase throughout 2008 and beyond. The dynamic movement within the LPO industry has not gone unnoticed in the private equity and venture capital sectors. The confidence that investors have demonstrated in the industry throughout 2007 illustrates the bright prospects for the coming year. In November this year Infosys, India’s second largest IT company, signaled their intent on entering the legal outsourcing market with the launch of their own legal process outsourcing operation. Established LPOs including Pangea3, Jurimatrix and SDD Global have attracted a significant level of private equity and venture capital funding. 2007 also witnessed the first acquisition of an onshore provider of outsourced legal services, CBF Group Inc, by a company traditionally viewed as being a leading offshore financial and legal services outsourcing company, Integreon. This type of activity has placed legal outsourcing companies in the position to scale up dramatically.According to the independent research company ValueNotes in their July 2007 report, “Offshoring Legal Services to India - An Update”, the revenues from legal services offshoring are forecast to grow from $146 million in 2006 to $640 million by the end of 2010. The legal outsourcing industry in India currently employs around 7,500 people and this number is expected to rise to 32,000 by 2010. Neeraja Kandala, the analyst behind the ValueNotes updated report, believes that consolidation is inevitable:
“Most Indian legal service vendors are self-funded, and may not have the capability to develop adequate marketing infrastructure without VC funding. For a large number of the smaller vendors, growth beyond a point will be difficult. While a few will manage to grow given their strong onshore presence, several smaller players will be vulnerable. On the other hand, the interest of large BPOs such as Infosys and HCL in this space is growing. As these BPOs look to build presence and scale rapidly, the acquisition of smaller vendors is an option. Though there is not much activity yet, over time we will see consolidation, with large BPOs and LPOs acquiring capacity and capability.”
Ron Friedman, Senior Vice-President of Marketing for Integreon and one of the world’s leading authorities on knowledge support strategies and the legal outsourcing industry generally provides his view on the consolidation of the LPO marketplace.
“As a general rule, industries consolidate as they mature. In the legal market, we see evidence of that now with electronic discovery vendors and large law firms. Even the traditionally fragmented legal software market is consolidating as LexisNexis and Thomson-West acquire smaller software players.
So I expect that the LPO market will not be an exception. Of course, guessing the time frame is always hard, but I suspect it will consolidate in the next two to three years. Whether that is a result of organic growth of some plus attrition of others or by acquisition is too early to say.
For LPOs, scale will drive consolidation. Scale is important for three reasons. First, it supports operating efficiencies. While lower offshore labor costs continue to offer significant savings today, in the future law firms will expect further savings from process improvements. Achieving these requires a large enough volume of work to gain the requisite experience and resources to re-engineer work flows. Second, scale means being able to offer a range of services which law firms will find valuable as they grow comfortable with offshoring and seek to outsource additional functions to a single supplier. And third, scale allows an LPO to recruit the best talent. Though talent is still readily available, the supply is limited, even in India. Larger operations will be able to invest in recruiting and, more importantly, to offer desirable career paths for the best workers.
Size will also help address whatever reservations law firms may have about offshoring. Law firms are always concerned about supplier stability and frequently have reservations about small ones. Larger LPOs will address this general concern and, as important, have both the reputation and references to allay other fears.”
Public Acknowledgement
Given that the majority of the leading LPOs can testify in 2007 to having received projects from AM law 200 ranked law firms, where are the testimonials, quotes, and press releases from the law firms’ managing partners? I am perfectly aware from my own experiences and numerous discussions with both the press and my peers at other LPOs that although major law firms have begun to explore the benefits associated through offshore legal process outsourcing they are also clearly still operating from a standpoint of reluctance to discuss their outsourcing relationships. There is a feeling within the industry that the major firms still view their own offshore legal outsourcing arrangements as a dirty little secret. Attempts by LPOs to include provisions within their contracts that allow publicizing of the deals have generally been met with rejection to date. Over the last 12 months I and many of my peers at leading LPOs have written articles for or been interviewed by journalists for publications as varied as Time magazine, the American Bar Association, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and the Association of Legal Administrators, to name but a few. The vast majority of these articles are still missing out on the “major firm” perspective. There is an unwillingness to go on record and confirm that the firm is outsourcing elements of their legal functions, whether back-office support or higher value legal work, to India. This is clearly frustrating for the LPOs who want to shout from the rooftops about every major client they have on their books.
I anticipate that this will change over the next couple of years. Don’t expect a tidal wave of confessions; however in the same way that the major firms’ initial interest in exploring legal offshoring was client driven, so will their eagerness to publicize the fact of their involvement. During the last year many of the law firm partners who have contacted both LawScribe and some of the other leading LPOs have been perfectly content to acknowledge that the reason they are approaching an LPO in the very first place is because their corporate clients are starting to demand that they offer an offshore element in their responses to RFPs or they will simply lose their business altogether.
As it was with the first uptake of offshore legal outsourcing, the public acknowledgement of the actual utilization of these services will of course be client driven. In 2007 we viewed the very first signs that an inherently risk-averse legal profession was publicly embracing the harsh reality that no industry was immune to the forces of globalization. Although the majority of the world’s leading law firms are still reluctant to go “on the record” and acknowledge their interest in offshore legal outsourcing, throughout 2007 AM Law 200 firms have been consistently approaching the world’s leading legal process outsourcing companies, submitting RFPs and inquiring about the various services on offer.
The picture has started to change. On occasions representatives from leading firms have joined their LPO providers on panel discussions at a variety of legal conferences that have begun to address the subject in 2007. I believe that in 2008 we will reach the point where having the law firm’s name out in the public domain as one that embraces offshore legal process outsourcing will actually be an attractive bonus for potential corporate clients, hence helping generate new business rather than turning people off.
Ron Friedman provides his own unique insight on whether 2008 will be the year that the major law firms come clean and publicly acknowledge that offshore legal outsourcing is firmly on their agendas:
“There is a common “tipping phenomenon” among large firms where no one wants to be first. Of course, a firm does go first and eventually a couple follow. Once a half-dozen or so have moved, the market tips – then, no one wants to be left behind not doing the new thing. Looking at adoption of e-mail and creation of marketing departments as examples, it seems to take at least five years for a cycle to play out. Today, firms are reluctant to acknowledge publicly that they offshore. Once a few go public, it will likely take little time for the rest to follow. And because of perceptions, more are likely to go public soon…
Law firms have many constituencies but clients come first. Large firm clients are, by and large, cost-sensitive in-house counsel. Firms can gain both a perception and actual advantage with clients by making clear they understand and are responding to the cost pressures facing their clients. Cutting associate or partner rates (whether directly or by discounting) is not attractive. And, talk notwithstanding, fixed and alternative fees have yet to gain significant share. So the number of ways to reduce costs is limited. As firms gain comfort with offshoring quality, they will understand that it is a good way to offer savings without affecting the firm’s core business. It therefore seems likely that market pressures will cause the early law firm adopters of outsourcing to also be the early “announcers.”Neeraja Kandala, of ValueNotes agrees that public acknowledgement is just around the corner:
“Early adopters among US and UK law firms are gaining comfort with the idea of offshoring. There are several law firms that are inhibited by various concerns. Those who have held back are now seeing the success stories of some of their competitors. I’m quite optimistic that once the law firms and corporates get more comfortable with the idea of offshoring, they will openly acknowledge their participation.”
Regulation, Accreditation and Certification
New companies without any real U.S. or U.K. physical presence or without the requisite legal background and qualifications are springing up all the time. The original ValueNotes report in December 2005 estimated in the region of 40 LPOs. 18 months later the numbers had swelled to well over 100. Many are simply jumping on the legal outsourcing bandwagon, seeing it as the latest “get rich quick” scheme. Last October LawScribe were forced to threaten legal action against a new LPO called LexGenius whose website was a virtual word for word plagiarism of the LawScribe site. It went as far as completely to copy the LawScribe CEO President, Kunoor Chopra’s, profile but simply to substitute in the name of the LexGenius founder!
There have been numerous calls from some of the major players within the industry relating to the formation of trade associations, independent training programs, regulatory bodies and best practice procedures. To date there has been no specific general consensus in these areas. It is likely that 2008 will witness the development of at a very minimum best practice rules for the industry.
2007 saw the first moves from within the industry towards accreditation and self-regulation. Russell Smith from SDD Global Solutions led one initiative with the formation of the first LPO trade association with the inaugural meeting held in Delhi in the summer of 2007. In November, through the forum of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, LawScribe led the first Legal Outsourcing Topic Chapter meeting attended by senior representatives from leading LPOs, BPOs, Law firms, academics and other interested stakeholders. 2007 also witnessed LPOs Jurimatrix and QuisLex, in association with one of India’s leading training organizations, develop the Global Legal Professional Certification Test.
Throughout 2008 I anticipate that both at legal conferences and on their own initiative senior representatives from the world’s leading LPOs will continue to meet and discuss these issues. While it is clear that many within the industry are committed to achieving higher standards to inspire confidence among their clients, to date there has been no general consensus as to how best to achieve this.
Deregulation of U.K. Legal Sector and its Impact on the Legal Process Outsourcing Industry.
In the U.K. the Legal Services Bill finally received Royal Assent on October 30, 2007. The true impact of this piece of legislation will only start to be felt in 2008 and beyond. The particular section of the Bill that will have the most far reaching consequences on the legal profession and provide a colossal boost to the growth of offshore legal outsourcing, is the provision allowing the formation of Alternative Business Structures. The summary to the Bill at paragraph 15 states as follows:
“Alternative Business Structures (ABS) will enable lawyers and non-lawyers to work together on an equal footing to deliver legal and other services. External investment will be possible”.
Put simply, non-lawyers can own and invest in law firms. To all intents and purposes this opens the doors to banks, insurance companies, supermarkets and other corporate entities both owning and investing in existing law firms or alternatively setting up their own firms and marketing legal services to the general public.Tony Williams, a former Clifford Chance Managing Partner, recently penned an article for the Times Online, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2718339.ece referencing ten trends that will shape the legal market over the coming years. At trend number 4 the author commented that:“Technology will enable projects to be ‘unbundled’. This may mean that parts of the project are outsourced to India and that they are done in a systemized manner. This could have a significant impact on the need for junior lawyers, particularly if they start to price themselves out of the market.”Trend number 6 stated:“High Street legal services will be fundamentally transformed by the Legal Services Act. A number of major brands will dominate the provision of retail legal services. Will that be law firms, or outsiders such as supermarkets or banks? It is too soon to tell whether existing law firms will be able to develop strong enough retail brands.”Finally, at trend number 7, the author went on to say:“If the Clementi reforms (the forerunner to the Legal Services Bill) are broadly successful, one can expect firms higher up the chain to take in outside capital and float on the market.”
Over the coming years there will be an influx into the legal market of major corporate entities that previously were prohibited from providing legal services. I do not anticipate that in the near future banks and supermarkets will necessarily be providing high end, premium legal advice, however I do believe that these corporations will come to dominate the provision of routine, retail legal services. None of these corporations will be bound by the traditional and antiquated existing methods of legal services delivery. They will simply look for the most cost-effective method of providing legal services to the general public. These companies either already have offshore locations or have the capability to scale up significantly quicker than even the world’s largest law firms to provide legal support from offshore destinations. This in turn will have a domino effect and will inspire the world’s leading law firms to look at new operational models for delivering routine legal support, with offshore legal outsourcing being the logical choice.
In addition, the potential floatation of some firms “higher up the chain” only reinforces my belief that this will give the offshore legal outsourcing industry a huge boost. When major firms also have responsibility to their shareholders, as well as their clients, then the salaries that they pay their junior associates to perform relatively routine, offshoreable level legal work, will raise more than a few eyebrows. When corporate clients increasingly demand that law firms provide an offshore solution in responses to Requests for Proposals, shareholders will not be happy if the firm is incapable of responding to these requests.
The face of the legal profession in the U.K. is changing dramatically. These changes will have far reaching, cross-Atlantic repercussions. The U.K. and U.S. legal markets are inextricably linked, with many of the world’s leading law firms having offices on both sides of the pond. Together the U.S. and U.K. account for over 90% of the world’s $250 billion legal services market. What happens in the U.K. does not stay in the U.K. but will soon be felt all around the Western legal world.
The Future – What can’t be done?
I firmly believe that within 5 years, in a much consolidated industry, offshoring routine level legal work will have become the norm for the world’s leading law firms and corporations. Of the current 100 plus LPO providers, many will have ceased to exist and have been swallowed up by BPOs or will simply have gone out of business. We will have witnessed the development of clear and unequivocal ethical standards of practice and procedure relating specifically to the industry. New destinations and talent pools in Africa and South America which are currently virtually untapped will be in the process of being developed as the rupee continues its rise against an ever-decreasing dollar. I believe that as advances in technology continue to grow exponentially and the quality of the offshore attorneys improves that the question will move beyond what can offshore employees do to what can’t they do?
About the Author :
Mark Ross is a professional member of the IAOP, and Chapter Chair of the IAOP Legal Outsourcing Topic Chapter. He was formerly a partner at the UK law firm Underwoods Solicitors Underwoods is referred to as “a highly influential flagship firm and model for other firms…It has pioneered offshoring of legal work.”
Mark also developed a case management system for the offshoring of personal injury cases to South Africa. He immigrated to Los Angeles and joined LawScribe in 2006. He has been a regular speaker at legal conferences on outsourcing and offshoring and have had numerous articles published in legal journals on subjects as varied as: death of the hourly rate, liberalization of the Indian legal sector and the ongoing salary hikes by the US and UK’s top law firms. Mark can be contacted at mross@law-scribe.com or (818) 442-4615.
Views expressed here belong to the author and do not represent those of the ThinkingStreet or the author’s employer.
“ The above article has been reprinted from http://thinkingstreet.com/business/2008/02/20/legal-process-outsourcing-lpo-2007-and-beyond-2/and LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”.
Rajashree on -->20 Feb 2008
Over the course of the last couple of years leading law firms have begun to wake up to the reality that we live and operate in a global marketplace. Technology enables an increasing array of legal support services and higher value legal work to be outsourced offshore. The legal profession is now starting to take advantage of the labor arbitrage that has been exploited by other industries for well over a decade. Throughout 2006 and 2007 the offshore legal outsourcing market also witnessed the entry of some of the world’s largest Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) companies together with a significant level of venture capital and private equity funding.
This article will examine the driving forces behind the emergence of the LPO industry and how it has developed over the last few years. I will also be offering some insight into the direction the industry will take in 2008 and beyond. Finally, I intend to take a more detailed look at the impact that the recently passed UK Legal Services Bill will have on the offshore legal outsourcing market. I am both delighted and fortunate to have contributions to this article from Ron Friedman, Senior Vice President, Marketing at Integreon (http://integreon.com/) and Neeraja Kandala, Senior Research Analyst with ValueNotes (http://www.valuenotes.biz/).
The Driving Forces
The demand for lower cost legal services resulted directly from increasingly cost-conscious U.S. and U.K. corporate clients. The difference between the law and other industries is that outsourcing in the legal market has been client rather than industry driven. In the legal profession, it was not law firms, but corporate legal departments that were the early proponents of the benefits of legal outsourcing. These major corporate clients are now increasing the pressure on their law firms to offer an alternative solution. Historically major law firms on both sides of the Atlantic achieved huge levels of profitability through leveraging their junior associates. The Los Angeles Daily Journal announced earlier this year that pay scales for first-year attorneys rose yet again with a number of firms hitting a staggering $160,000 annual starting salary. Law firm leaders insist that these increases have resulted from U.S. domestic economic forces, necessitating a policy of “Keeping up with the Joneses” in order to retain the top law school talent. The fully loaded cost to the firm of a junior associate at these salary levels will be in excess of $250,000 per annum. Partners look to bill these associates out at hourly rates of $300- $400 plus per hour. These rates simply do not wash any more with major corporate clients when it comes to routine level legal support work such as basic document drafting, litigation support or document review. Over the course of the last 12 months I have spoken to senior executives and managing partners at major law firms who have been advised in no uncertain terms that to retain their corporate client business they must cut their legal fees and offer an offshore alternative. KPMG has estimated that document review can account for between 58% and 90% of the total cost of litigation, and corporate clients view this type of legal work as routine. Law firms are being compelled by their clients to consider offshore outsourcing as a viable strategic solution. 2007 was the year that corporate clients confirmed they were no longer prepared simply to sign a blank check when it comes to paying their attorney’s bills.
Consolidation and Maturation of the industry
Since 2003, in India alone the number of companies offering legal process outsourcing services to both corporations and U.S. and U.K. law firms has grown to well over 100. For further information on the growing number of companies offering offshore legal services check out Ron Friedman and Joy London’s updated list at http://www.prismlegal.com/index.php?option=content&task=viewid=88&Itemid=70#List and the July 2007 ValueNotes report Offshoring Legal Services to India: an Update http://www.sourcingnotes.com/content/view/71/54/.
If 2007 can be categorized as the year when the number of LPO players across India exploded and major law firms began to explore the labor arbitrage benefits available through outsourcing offshore, then the picture will start to change again in 2008. Even while a large number of “mom and pop shops” were clinging on to the major players’ coat tails and jumping on the LPO bandwagon there was evidence of consolidation. This will only increase throughout 2008 and beyond. The dynamic movement within the LPO industry has not gone unnoticed in the private equity and venture capital sectors. The confidence that investors have demonstrated in the industry throughout 2007 illustrates the bright prospects for the coming year. In November this year Infosys, India’s second largest IT company, signaled their intent on entering the legal outsourcing market with the launch of their own legal process outsourcing operation. Established LPOs including Pangea3, Jurimatrix and SDD Global have attracted a significant level of private equity and venture capital funding. 2007 also witnessed the first acquisition of an onshore provider of outsourced legal services, CBF Group Inc, by a company traditionally viewed as being a leading offshore financial and legal services outsourcing company, Integreon. This type of activity has placed legal outsourcing companies in the position to scale up dramatically.According to the independent research company ValueNotes in their July 2007 report, “Offshoring Legal Services to India - An Update”, the revenues from legal services offshoring are forecast to grow from $146 million in 2006 to $640 million by the end of 2010. The legal outsourcing industry in India currently employs around 7,500 people and this number is expected to rise to 32,000 by 2010. Neeraja Kandala, the analyst behind the ValueNotes updated report, believes that consolidation is inevitable:
“Most Indian legal service vendors are self-funded, and may not have the capability to develop adequate marketing infrastructure without VC funding. For a large number of the smaller vendors, growth beyond a point will be difficult. While a few will manage to grow given their strong onshore presence, several smaller players will be vulnerable. On the other hand, the interest of large BPOs such as Infosys and HCL in this space is growing. As these BPOs look to build presence and scale rapidly, the acquisition of smaller vendors is an option. Though there is not much activity yet, over time we will see consolidation, with large BPOs and LPOs acquiring capacity and capability.”
Ron Friedman, Senior Vice-President of Marketing for Integreon and one of the world’s leading authorities on knowledge support strategies and the legal outsourcing industry generally provides his view on the consolidation of the LPO marketplace.
“As a general rule, industries consolidate as they mature. In the legal market, we see evidence of that now with electronic discovery vendors and large law firms. Even the traditionally fragmented legal software market is consolidating as LexisNexis and Thomson-West acquire smaller software players.
So I expect that the LPO market will not be an exception. Of course, guessing the time frame is always hard, but I suspect it will consolidate in the next two to three years. Whether that is a result of organic growth of some plus attrition of others or by acquisition is too early to say.
For LPOs, scale will drive consolidation. Scale is important for three reasons. First, it supports operating efficiencies. While lower offshore labor costs continue to offer significant savings today, in the future law firms will expect further savings from process improvements. Achieving these requires a large enough volume of work to gain the requisite experience and resources to re-engineer work flows. Second, scale means being able to offer a range of services which law firms will find valuable as they grow comfortable with offshoring and seek to outsource additional functions to a single supplier. And third, scale allows an LPO to recruit the best talent. Though talent is still readily available, the supply is limited, even in India. Larger operations will be able to invest in recruiting and, more importantly, to offer desirable career paths for the best workers.
Size will also help address whatever reservations law firms may have about offshoring. Law firms are always concerned about supplier stability and frequently have reservations about small ones. Larger LPOs will address this general concern and, as important, have both the reputation and references to allay other fears.”
Public Acknowledgement
Given that the majority of the leading LPOs can testify in 2007 to having received projects from AM law 200 ranked law firms, where are the testimonials, quotes, and press releases from the law firms’ managing partners? I am perfectly aware from my own experiences and numerous discussions with both the press and my peers at other LPOs that although major law firms have begun to explore the benefits associated through offshore legal process outsourcing they are also clearly still operating from a standpoint of reluctance to discuss their outsourcing relationships. There is a feeling within the industry that the major firms still view their own offshore legal outsourcing arrangements as a dirty little secret. Attempts by LPOs to include provisions within their contracts that allow publicizing of the deals have generally been met with rejection to date. Over the last 12 months I and many of my peers at leading LPOs have written articles for or been interviewed by journalists for publications as varied as Time magazine, the American Bar Association, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and the Association of Legal Administrators, to name but a few. The vast majority of these articles are still missing out on the “major firm” perspective. There is an unwillingness to go on record and confirm that the firm is outsourcing elements of their legal functions, whether back-office support or higher value legal work, to India. This is clearly frustrating for the LPOs who want to shout from the rooftops about every major client they have on their books.
I anticipate that this will change over the next couple of years. Don’t expect a tidal wave of confessions; however in the same way that the major firms’ initial interest in exploring legal offshoring was client driven, so will their eagerness to publicize the fact of their involvement. During the last year many of the law firm partners who have contacted both LawScribe and some of the other leading LPOs have been perfectly content to acknowledge that the reason they are approaching an LPO in the very first place is because their corporate clients are starting to demand that they offer an offshore element in their responses to RFPs or they will simply lose their business altogether.
As it was with the first uptake of offshore legal outsourcing, the public acknowledgement of the actual utilization of these services will of course be client driven. In 2007 we viewed the very first signs that an inherently risk-averse legal profession was publicly embracing the harsh reality that no industry was immune to the forces of globalization. Although the majority of the world’s leading law firms are still reluctant to go “on the record” and acknowledge their interest in offshore legal outsourcing, throughout 2007 AM Law 200 firms have been consistently approaching the world’s leading legal process outsourcing companies, submitting RFPs and inquiring about the various services on offer.
The picture has started to change. On occasions representatives from leading firms have joined their LPO providers on panel discussions at a variety of legal conferences that have begun to address the subject in 2007. I believe that in 2008 we will reach the point where having the law firm’s name out in the public domain as one that embraces offshore legal process outsourcing will actually be an attractive bonus for potential corporate clients, hence helping generate new business rather than turning people off.
Ron Friedman provides his own unique insight on whether 2008 will be the year that the major law firms come clean and publicly acknowledge that offshore legal outsourcing is firmly on their agendas:
“There is a common “tipping phenomenon” among large firms where no one wants to be first. Of course, a firm does go first and eventually a couple follow. Once a half-dozen or so have moved, the market tips – then, no one wants to be left behind not doing the new thing. Looking at adoption of e-mail and creation of marketing departments as examples, it seems to take at least five years for a cycle to play out. Today, firms are reluctant to acknowledge publicly that they offshore. Once a few go public, it will likely take little time for the rest to follow. And because of perceptions, more are likely to go public soon…
Law firms have many constituencies but clients come first. Large firm clients are, by and large, cost-sensitive in-house counsel. Firms can gain both a perception and actual advantage with clients by making clear they understand and are responding to the cost pressures facing their clients. Cutting associate or partner rates (whether directly or by discounting) is not attractive. And, talk notwithstanding, fixed and alternative fees have yet to gain significant share. So the number of ways to reduce costs is limited. As firms gain comfort with offshoring quality, they will understand that it is a good way to offer savings without affecting the firm’s core business. It therefore seems likely that market pressures will cause the early law firm adopters of outsourcing to also be the early “announcers.”Neeraja Kandala, of ValueNotes agrees that public acknowledgement is just around the corner:
“Early adopters among US and UK law firms are gaining comfort with the idea of offshoring. There are several law firms that are inhibited by various concerns. Those who have held back are now seeing the success stories of some of their competitors. I’m quite optimistic that once the law firms and corporates get more comfortable with the idea of offshoring, they will openly acknowledge their participation.”
Regulation, Accreditation and Certification
New companies without any real U.S. or U.K. physical presence or without the requisite legal background and qualifications are springing up all the time. The original ValueNotes report in December 2005 estimated in the region of 40 LPOs. 18 months later the numbers had swelled to well over 100. Many are simply jumping on the legal outsourcing bandwagon, seeing it as the latest “get rich quick” scheme. Last October LawScribe were forced to threaten legal action against a new LPO called LexGenius whose website was a virtual word for word plagiarism of the LawScribe site. It went as far as completely to copy the LawScribe CEO President, Kunoor Chopra’s, profile but simply to substitute in the name of the LexGenius founder!
There have been numerous calls from some of the major players within the industry relating to the formation of trade associations, independent training programs, regulatory bodies and best practice procedures. To date there has been no specific general consensus in these areas. It is likely that 2008 will witness the development of at a very minimum best practice rules for the industry.
2007 saw the first moves from within the industry towards accreditation and self-regulation. Russell Smith from SDD Global Solutions led one initiative with the formation of the first LPO trade association with the inaugural meeting held in Delhi in the summer of 2007. In November, through the forum of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, LawScribe led the first Legal Outsourcing Topic Chapter meeting attended by senior representatives from leading LPOs, BPOs, Law firms, academics and other interested stakeholders. 2007 also witnessed LPOs Jurimatrix and QuisLex, in association with one of India’s leading training organizations, develop the Global Legal Professional Certification Test.
Throughout 2008 I anticipate that both at legal conferences and on their own initiative senior representatives from the world’s leading LPOs will continue to meet and discuss these issues. While it is clear that many within the industry are committed to achieving higher standards to inspire confidence among their clients, to date there has been no general consensus as to how best to achieve this.
Deregulation of U.K. Legal Sector and its Impact on the Legal Process Outsourcing Industry.
In the U.K. the Legal Services Bill finally received Royal Assent on October 30, 2007. The true impact of this piece of legislation will only start to be felt in 2008 and beyond. The particular section of the Bill that will have the most far reaching consequences on the legal profession and provide a colossal boost to the growth of offshore legal outsourcing, is the provision allowing the formation of Alternative Business Structures. The summary to the Bill at paragraph 15 states as follows:
“Alternative Business Structures (ABS) will enable lawyers and non-lawyers to work together on an equal footing to deliver legal and other services. External investment will be possible”.
Put simply, non-lawyers can own and invest in law firms. To all intents and purposes this opens the doors to banks, insurance companies, supermarkets and other corporate entities both owning and investing in existing law firms or alternatively setting up their own firms and marketing legal services to the general public.Tony Williams, a former Clifford Chance Managing Partner, recently penned an article for the Times Online, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2718339.ece referencing ten trends that will shape the legal market over the coming years. At trend number 4 the author commented that:“Technology will enable projects to be ‘unbundled’. This may mean that parts of the project are outsourced to India and that they are done in a systemized manner. This could have a significant impact on the need for junior lawyers, particularly if they start to price themselves out of the market.”Trend number 6 stated:“High Street legal services will be fundamentally transformed by the Legal Services Act. A number of major brands will dominate the provision of retail legal services. Will that be law firms, or outsiders such as supermarkets or banks? It is too soon to tell whether existing law firms will be able to develop strong enough retail brands.”Finally, at trend number 7, the author went on to say:“If the Clementi reforms (the forerunner to the Legal Services Bill) are broadly successful, one can expect firms higher up the chain to take in outside capital and float on the market.”
Over the coming years there will be an influx into the legal market of major corporate entities that previously were prohibited from providing legal services. I do not anticipate that in the near future banks and supermarkets will necessarily be providing high end, premium legal advice, however I do believe that these corporations will come to dominate the provision of routine, retail legal services. None of these corporations will be bound by the traditional and antiquated existing methods of legal services delivery. They will simply look for the most cost-effective method of providing legal services to the general public. These companies either already have offshore locations or have the capability to scale up significantly quicker than even the world’s largest law firms to provide legal support from offshore destinations. This in turn will have a domino effect and will inspire the world’s leading law firms to look at new operational models for delivering routine legal support, with offshore legal outsourcing being the logical choice.
In addition, the potential floatation of some firms “higher up the chain” only reinforces my belief that this will give the offshore legal outsourcing industry a huge boost. When major firms also have responsibility to their shareholders, as well as their clients, then the salaries that they pay their junior associates to perform relatively routine, offshoreable level legal work, will raise more than a few eyebrows. When corporate clients increasingly demand that law firms provide an offshore solution in responses to Requests for Proposals, shareholders will not be happy if the firm is incapable of responding to these requests.
The face of the legal profession in the U.K. is changing dramatically. These changes will have far reaching, cross-Atlantic repercussions. The U.K. and U.S. legal markets are inextricably linked, with many of the world’s leading law firms having offices on both sides of the pond. Together the U.S. and U.K. account for over 90% of the world’s $250 billion legal services market. What happens in the U.K. does not stay in the U.K. but will soon be felt all around the Western legal world.
The Future – What can’t be done?
I firmly believe that within 5 years, in a much consolidated industry, offshoring routine level legal work will have become the norm for the world’s leading law firms and corporations. Of the current 100 plus LPO providers, many will have ceased to exist and have been swallowed up by BPOs or will simply have gone out of business. We will have witnessed the development of clear and unequivocal ethical standards of practice and procedure relating specifically to the industry. New destinations and talent pools in Africa and South America which are currently virtually untapped will be in the process of being developed as the rupee continues its rise against an ever-decreasing dollar. I believe that as advances in technology continue to grow exponentially and the quality of the offshore attorneys improves that the question will move beyond what can offshore employees do to what can’t they do?
About the Author :
Mark Ross is a professional member of the IAOP, and Chapter Chair of the IAOP Legal Outsourcing Topic Chapter. He was formerly a partner at the UK law firm Underwoods Solicitors Underwoods is referred to as “a highly influential flagship firm and model for other firms…It has pioneered offshoring of legal work.”
Mark also developed a case management system for the offshoring of personal injury cases to South Africa. He immigrated to Los Angeles and joined LawScribe in 2006. He has been a regular speaker at legal conferences on outsourcing and offshoring and have had numerous articles published in legal journals on subjects as varied as: death of the hourly rate, liberalization of the Indian legal sector and the ongoing salary hikes by the US and UK’s top law firms. Mark can be contacted at mross@law-scribe.com or (818) 442-4615.
Views expressed here belong to the author and do not represent those of the ThinkingStreet or the author’s employer.
“ The above article has been reprinted from http://thinkingstreet.com/business/2008/02/20/legal-process-outsourcing-lpo-2007-and-beyond-2/and LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
U.S. Legal Work Booms in India
U.S. Legal Work Booms in India
New Outsourcing Industry Is Growing 60 Percent Annually
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page A20
GURGAON, India -- When Aashish Sharma graduated from law school two years ago, his father had visions of seeing him argue in an Indian court and eventually become an honorable judge.
Instead, Sharma, 25, now sits all day in front of a computer in a plush, air-conditioned suburban office doing litigation research and drafting legal contracts for U.S. companies and law firms. He is part of a booming new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers.
"It is much better than going to court in India and dealing with all kinds of rough people. Working in legal outsourcing is a happy career move for me, although my father does not fully understand what I am doing here after my education in Indian law," said Sharma, who began working in February for an outsourcing company called Quatrro. "I am getting valuable exposure to the American judicial system, corporate law and their way of working."
Legal process outsourcing is being called the next big thing in Indian business. It marks India's climb up the chain of outsourcing jobs -- from low-end, back-office service functions in call centers to high-value, skilled legal work.
In the past three years, the legal outsourcing industry here has grown about 60 percent annually. According to a report by research firm ValueNotes, the industry will employ about 24,000 people and earn revenue of $640 million by 2010.
Indian workers who once helped with legal transcription now offer services that include research, litigation support, document discovery and review, drafting of contracts and patent writing. The industry offers an attractive career path for many of the 300,000 Indians who enroll in law schools every year. India and the United States share a common-law legal system rooted in Britain's, and both conduct proceedings in English.
The explosion of opportunity here was triggered by what are known as "e-discovery laws," a set of U.S. regulations established in 2006 to govern the storage and management of electronic data for federal court actions. Overnight, the volume of information to be stored, archived, filtered and reviewed for litigation swelled. But there were not enough affordable lawyers or paralegals to do the work in the United States.
"The new e-discovery rules sent American companies scurrying all over the place. Neither the corporates nor the law firms in America are geared to do this kind of work at short notice. And that is where the Indian players come in. We can bring together a large number of skilled lawyers in no time at all and at one-fifth the cost," said Srinivas Pingali, executive vice president at Quatrro, which also offers technical support, credit card fraud management, consumer research and architectural services for American clients, among other work.
Pingali said that the economic slowdown in the United States has not hurt his company's business. In fact, legal work related to bankruptcies has increased.
Because of the sensitive nature of legal work, Indian outsourcing companies have tried to allay the concerns about confidentiality. They have installed closed-circuit televisions, network safeguards and hack-proof servers.
Many outsourcing companies in India already have those security measures in place because they have been handling the credit card and banking operations of global companies for more than a decade. Industry members say that outsourcing of legal work to India is a natural next step.
"Ninety percent of a lawyer's work is legal research and drafting, and all this can now be offshored to India," said Russell Smith, who worked in a Manhattan law firm called SmithDehn before moving to India to set up an outsourcing company in 2006. "A large portion of our fees in the U.S. is because of office rent. It is often a big decision to hire one attorney in the U.S. In India, we can hire 10 at a time and train them all at once."
Smith's Indian company, SDD Global Solutions, handled much of the legal work for the film "Borat." Other clients include the Washington-based firm Appleton & Associates and U.S. movie studios and television networks.
"My people in India can do everything from here, except sign the opinion letter and appear in an American court," he said.
Smith's Indian office recently researched and drafted the motion papers for the dismissal of a libel case against the producers of HBO's "Da Ali G Show." Smith said that if it had not been for the cheaper option of outsourcing, the producers would have settled.
For many law graduates, the contrast between the Indian and American judicial systems comes as a surprise. India's overburdened courts, with 13 judges for every 1 million people, are characterized by backlogs and delays.
Sharma, the Quatrro employee, said he was fascinated by the speed of proceedings and judgments in the American system.
Indian employees have to undergo rigorous training in U.S. legal and judicial practices before they can take on projects. But lawyers with experience in the United States say there are challenges in training Indians.
"They write in flowery, British-style English," said Kunoor Chopra, who came to India to set up the offshore legal support firm LawScribe in 2004 after working for Fulbright & Jaworski in Los Angeles. "It is almost like an unlearning process. They have to be retrained to write in crisp, short sentences. A licensed attorney from California comes to train all my new employees in contract writing, review and research."
Meanwhile, Sharma said he learns something new every day doing legal work for Americans.
"I have learned so many new words," he said. "I keep Dictionary.com on standby. Recently, I had to look up the word 'esquire.' I always thought it meant a respectable gentleman. But in America, it means an attorney."
New Outsourcing Industry Is Growing 60 Percent Annually
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page A20
GURGAON, India -- When Aashish Sharma graduated from law school two years ago, his father had visions of seeing him argue in an Indian court and eventually become an honorable judge.
Instead, Sharma, 25, now sits all day in front of a computer in a plush, air-conditioned suburban office doing litigation research and drafting legal contracts for U.S. companies and law firms. He is part of a booming new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers.
"It is much better than going to court in India and dealing with all kinds of rough people. Working in legal outsourcing is a happy career move for me, although my father does not fully understand what I am doing here after my education in Indian law," said Sharma, who began working in February for an outsourcing company called Quatrro. "I am getting valuable exposure to the American judicial system, corporate law and their way of working."
Legal process outsourcing is being called the next big thing in Indian business. It marks India's climb up the chain of outsourcing jobs -- from low-end, back-office service functions in call centers to high-value, skilled legal work.
In the past three years, the legal outsourcing industry here has grown about 60 percent annually. According to a report by research firm ValueNotes, the industry will employ about 24,000 people and earn revenue of $640 million by 2010.
Indian workers who once helped with legal transcription now offer services that include research, litigation support, document discovery and review, drafting of contracts and patent writing. The industry offers an attractive career path for many of the 300,000 Indians who enroll in law schools every year. India and the United States share a common-law legal system rooted in Britain's, and both conduct proceedings in English.
The explosion of opportunity here was triggered by what are known as "e-discovery laws," a set of U.S. regulations established in 2006 to govern the storage and management of electronic data for federal court actions. Overnight, the volume of information to be stored, archived, filtered and reviewed for litigation swelled. But there were not enough affordable lawyers or paralegals to do the work in the United States.
"The new e-discovery rules sent American companies scurrying all over the place. Neither the corporates nor the law firms in America are geared to do this kind of work at short notice. And that is where the Indian players come in. We can bring together a large number of skilled lawyers in no time at all and at one-fifth the cost," said Srinivas Pingali, executive vice president at Quatrro, which also offers technical support, credit card fraud management, consumer research and architectural services for American clients, among other work.
Pingali said that the economic slowdown in the United States has not hurt his company's business. In fact, legal work related to bankruptcies has increased.
Because of the sensitive nature of legal work, Indian outsourcing companies have tried to allay the concerns about confidentiality. They have installed closed-circuit televisions, network safeguards and hack-proof servers.
Many outsourcing companies in India already have those security measures in place because they have been handling the credit card and banking operations of global companies for more than a decade. Industry members say that outsourcing of legal work to India is a natural next step.
"Ninety percent of a lawyer's work is legal research and drafting, and all this can now be offshored to India," said Russell Smith, who worked in a Manhattan law firm called SmithDehn before moving to India to set up an outsourcing company in 2006. "A large portion of our fees in the U.S. is because of office rent. It is often a big decision to hire one attorney in the U.S. In India, we can hire 10 at a time and train them all at once."
Smith's Indian company, SDD Global Solutions, handled much of the legal work for the film "Borat." Other clients include the Washington-based firm Appleton & Associates and U.S. movie studios and television networks.
"My people in India can do everything from here, except sign the opinion letter and appear in an American court," he said.
Smith's Indian office recently researched and drafted the motion papers for the dismissal of a libel case against the producers of HBO's "Da Ali G Show." Smith said that if it had not been for the cheaper option of outsourcing, the producers would have settled.
For many law graduates, the contrast between the Indian and American judicial systems comes as a surprise. India's overburdened courts, with 13 judges for every 1 million people, are characterized by backlogs and delays.
Sharma, the Quatrro employee, said he was fascinated by the speed of proceedings and judgments in the American system.
Indian employees have to undergo rigorous training in U.S. legal and judicial practices before they can take on projects. But lawyers with experience in the United States say there are challenges in training Indians.
"They write in flowery, British-style English," said Kunoor Chopra, who came to India to set up the offshore legal support firm LawScribe in 2004 after working for Fulbright & Jaworski in Los Angeles. "It is almost like an unlearning process. They have to be retrained to write in crisp, short sentences. A licensed attorney from California comes to train all my new employees in contract writing, review and research."
Meanwhile, Sharma said he learns something new every day doing legal work for Americans.
"I have learned so many new words," he said. "I keep Dictionary.com on standby. Recently, I had to look up the word 'esquire.' I always thought it meant a respectable gentleman. But in America, it means an attorney."
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
The significance of court rules
While exploring the sources of law in American legal system it is interesting to find that the court rules, one of the elements in enacted law, function as the backbone of the judicial system. The court rules which prescribe the procedures to be adopted by the courts give extensive and clear cut directions. On a comparative note with the Indian context, the federal system and the states have their own court rules enacted by their respective appropriate bodies. In the states, the court rules are placed in a higher status above the statute passed by the legislature and the court rules always prevail over the statutes. Unlike the state court rules, the federal court rules have the same force as federal statutes. The Advisory committee appointed by the Judicial Conference of the United States drafts the federal court rules. The procedural rules have always been the curator of the common man against the callousness of the judiciary and the executive.
Author:Chandini Nair
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
While exploring the sources of law in American legal system it is interesting to find that the court rules, one of the elements in enacted law, function as the backbone of the judicial system. The court rules which prescribe the procedures to be adopted by the courts give extensive and clear cut directions. On a comparative note with the Indian context, the federal system and the states have their own court rules enacted by their respective appropriate bodies. In the states, the court rules are placed in a higher status above the statute passed by the legislature and the court rules always prevail over the statutes. Unlike the state court rules, the federal court rules have the same force as federal statutes. The Advisory committee appointed by the Judicial Conference of the United States drafts the federal court rules. The procedural rules have always been the curator of the common man against the callousness of the judiciary and the executive.
Author:Chandini Nair
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
America too respects!
Shockingly even in the largest democracy of the world *“ the judge has contempt power to punish summarily any disruption in the court room or other display of disrespect to the court.” In India ,the topic, ‘Contempt of Court ’ has always been one which is discussed and debated over.
Though both the nations have derived its set of laws from the English common law system, the revolutionary evolution which shaped the American legal system is much appreciable. The liberal view of the country is enviable. Whereas, in India , the legal system has not freed itself from the hangover of the colonial days.
The theory of Contempt of Court can be related to that of ‘Divine Rule Theory’, which was dethroned a couple of centuries back by the civilized world. The fact that even the liberal Americans who uphold the individual freedom than any other country in the world does not condemn the ‘contempt of court’ is something worth probing into.
(‘Introduction to the Law and Legal System of the United States ’-William Burnham
Ch.V,The Judicial System,pg.168)
Author:AnnieJeen
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi
Shockingly even in the largest democracy of the world *“ the judge has contempt power to punish summarily any disruption in the court room or other display of disrespect to the court.” In India ,the topic, ‘Contempt of Court ’ has always been one which is discussed and debated over.
Though both the nations have derived its set of laws from the English common law system, the revolutionary evolution which shaped the American legal system is much appreciable. The liberal view of the country is enviable. Whereas, in India , the legal system has not freed itself from the hangover of the colonial days.
The theory of Contempt of Court can be related to that of ‘Divine Rule Theory’, which was dethroned a couple of centuries back by the civilized world. The fact that even the liberal Americans who uphold the individual freedom than any other country in the world does not condemn the ‘contempt of court’ is something worth probing into.
(‘Introduction to the Law and Legal System of the United States ’-William Burnham
Ch.V,The Judicial System,pg.168)
Author:AnnieJeen
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi
Monday, March 31, 2008
General overview on American legal system
Law of the United States was originally derived from the common law system of English. The supreme Law of the land is the United States Constitution, and under this constitution, congress enacts many laws and treaties. Under the supremacy clause, constitution has given wide powers to congress to make laws and to enact them.
In the United States, the law is derived from mainly four sources. Constitutional law, Administrative law, Statues and common law. Among these the most important source of law is the Constitutional law. For example, if congress enacts a law which is contrary to the Constitutional law then the court can invalidate it as unconstitutional. Treaties are also considered as sources of law. If the congress does not interfere with a court rule, then it becomes a law. Court rules are framed by judicial conference. This conference are made by advisory committee consisted of judges, scholars and person’s specialized in particular branch of law. Some of the court rules are Federal rule of civil procedure, Federal rule of criminal procedure etc.
Common law is also an important source of law. The principle behind why courts refer to case laws when there is no enacted laws is stare decisis. The rule helps the court to look back to past cases for deciding future matters. It allows the court to decide the present matter as decided in past.
State laws, each state is separate from the other and has its own sovereign powers.
Fifty states have their own state constitutions and state governments, state enacts their own laws and the federal courts cannot extend its jurisdiction to interfere in state matters. They retain plenary powers to make laws covering anything not preempted by federal constitution.
State Constitutions delegated its law making power to number of agencies, public bodies and other governmental departments in some particular matters. All states constitution, statutes and administrative laws are subject to judicial interpretation by the court like the Federal.
Finally American citizens are bound by a number of federal and state laws, which they themselves find it difficult to trace out under which geographical location they fall to determine a case. Moreover efforts are still going on to codify a uniform state law, which is not yet achieved.
Author:RajadasKurias
JuniorAssociate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Law of the United States was originally derived from the common law system of English. The supreme Law of the land is the United States Constitution, and under this constitution, congress enacts many laws and treaties. Under the supremacy clause, constitution has given wide powers to congress to make laws and to enact them.
In the United States, the law is derived from mainly four sources. Constitutional law, Administrative law, Statues and common law. Among these the most important source of law is the Constitutional law. For example, if congress enacts a law which is contrary to the Constitutional law then the court can invalidate it as unconstitutional. Treaties are also considered as sources of law. If the congress does not interfere with a court rule, then it becomes a law. Court rules are framed by judicial conference. This conference are made by advisory committee consisted of judges, scholars and person’s specialized in particular branch of law. Some of the court rules are Federal rule of civil procedure, Federal rule of criminal procedure etc.
Common law is also an important source of law. The principle behind why courts refer to case laws when there is no enacted laws is stare decisis. The rule helps the court to look back to past cases for deciding future matters. It allows the court to decide the present matter as decided in past.
State laws, each state is separate from the other and has its own sovereign powers.
Fifty states have their own state constitutions and state governments, state enacts their own laws and the federal courts cannot extend its jurisdiction to interfere in state matters. They retain plenary powers to make laws covering anything not preempted by federal constitution.
State Constitutions delegated its law making power to number of agencies, public bodies and other governmental departments in some particular matters. All states constitution, statutes and administrative laws are subject to judicial interpretation by the court like the Federal.
Finally American citizens are bound by a number of federal and state laws, which they themselves find it difficult to trace out under which geographical location they fall to determine a case. Moreover efforts are still going on to codify a uniform state law, which is not yet achieved.
Author:RajadasKurias
JuniorAssociate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Force of Law
The legal systems of both India and the US have both originated from the Common law. No wonder why the basic principles of law are very similar or almost the same. Law gets its existence from various sources like customs, common law, statutes, precedents etc. Austin’s famous definition of law as the command of the sovereign gives an idea about the binding nature of law. As we live in an organized structure of a system called ‘state’ we are bound to follow certain rules and regulations in order for the state to maintain peace and security. Even if it is not mandatory to follow the law of the land, people have a fear of law. Or it is rather self control or self restriction driven by moral principles. Because we live in a society, people generally follow a pattern of behavior that is acceptable by all including the state. There need not be any specific law for that. Law enables the State to handle any situation where individuals start behaving against the acceptable patterns.
Law has become very diverse keeping in pace with the various transactions that people enter in to. Law is keeping abreast of the latest developments in the areas of business, communications and technology. Even if the law has various sources, it has to accept the changes that have occurred in the society and mindset of the people. What good can the law serve if it does not cater to the interests of the people? After all the ultimate purpose of a legal system is administration of justice and justice is for the people. Out of the various sources of law like customs, statutes, precedents etc, there might be certain principles that will not hold good in today’s situation. Most legal systems of the civilized world are designed in such a way as to be amended as and when the society changes in that regard. Precedents as a source of law play a very important role. There are certain basic principles of law that never requires any change. For e.g., the natural law. This can remain the same for all generations. The interpretation given to this law in the 19th century need not be the same in the 21st century also. Judges who interpret the law play a vital role here. They can interpret the law in such a way that it meets the standards of the new century. Precedent is a strong source of law in this regard. Though when compared to the binding nature of statutes, precedents has got only a persuasive nature. The Legislature can always invalidate or overrule such unwritten laws by amending the existing statute or by bringing in a new statute. This gives a high hand to the legislature which is run by people’s representatives. Legislature is thus supreme though Constitution is said to be the one. Constitution is itself a product of the legislature.
Author:RubinJohn
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
The legal systems of both India and the US have both originated from the Common law. No wonder why the basic principles of law are very similar or almost the same. Law gets its existence from various sources like customs, common law, statutes, precedents etc. Austin’s famous definition of law as the command of the sovereign gives an idea about the binding nature of law. As we live in an organized structure of a system called ‘state’ we are bound to follow certain rules and regulations in order for the state to maintain peace and security. Even if it is not mandatory to follow the law of the land, people have a fear of law. Or it is rather self control or self restriction driven by moral principles. Because we live in a society, people generally follow a pattern of behavior that is acceptable by all including the state. There need not be any specific law for that. Law enables the State to handle any situation where individuals start behaving against the acceptable patterns.
Law has become very diverse keeping in pace with the various transactions that people enter in to. Law is keeping abreast of the latest developments in the areas of business, communications and technology. Even if the law has various sources, it has to accept the changes that have occurred in the society and mindset of the people. What good can the law serve if it does not cater to the interests of the people? After all the ultimate purpose of a legal system is administration of justice and justice is for the people. Out of the various sources of law like customs, statutes, precedents etc, there might be certain principles that will not hold good in today’s situation. Most legal systems of the civilized world are designed in such a way as to be amended as and when the society changes in that regard. Precedents as a source of law play a very important role. There are certain basic principles of law that never requires any change. For e.g., the natural law. This can remain the same for all generations. The interpretation given to this law in the 19th century need not be the same in the 21st century also. Judges who interpret the law play a vital role here. They can interpret the law in such a way that it meets the standards of the new century. Precedent is a strong source of law in this regard. Though when compared to the binding nature of statutes, precedents has got only a persuasive nature. The Legislature can always invalidate or overrule such unwritten laws by amending the existing statute or by bringing in a new statute. This gives a high hand to the legislature which is run by people’s representatives. Legislature is thus supreme though Constitution is said to be the one. Constitution is itself a product of the legislature.
Author:RubinJohn
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Courts and Administration of Justice
Both in India and the US, Common law has lost its independent existence. It has got diluted in to their legal systems. Common law has become very much their own. The striking similarity between the US and Indian legal system is their common law origin. Common law has got Americanized and it is now ‘American’ law which includes the Constitution, the statutes, treaties, administrative agency rules, state constitution, state statutes etc. We can also see traces of common law in the Indian Constitution, various Indian statutes. But we cannot separate out common law from Indian law. American legal system is far more advanced than Indian legal system. The Court structure is very systematic in the US though complicated. Two parallel system of Courts run in the US owing to the nature of the political system of the country i.e., federal and state. The hierarchy of courts is well set up but it has its own inadequacies. There is an elaborate system of courts both in US and India but the results produced does not always meet the standards of justice as laid down by the common law. Delay, misinterpretation, maladministration etc haps the delivery of justice.
Author:RubinJohn
JuniorAssociate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Both in India and the US, Common law has lost its independent existence. It has got diluted in to their legal systems. Common law has become very much their own. The striking similarity between the US and Indian legal system is their common law origin. Common law has got Americanized and it is now ‘American’ law which includes the Constitution, the statutes, treaties, administrative agency rules, state constitution, state statutes etc. We can also see traces of common law in the Indian Constitution, various Indian statutes. But we cannot separate out common law from Indian law. American legal system is far more advanced than Indian legal system. The Court structure is very systematic in the US though complicated. Two parallel system of Courts run in the US owing to the nature of the political system of the country i.e., federal and state. The hierarchy of courts is well set up but it has its own inadequacies. There is an elaborate system of courts both in US and India but the results produced does not always meet the standards of justice as laid down by the common law. Delay, misinterpretation, maladministration etc haps the delivery of justice.
Author:RubinJohn
JuniorAssociate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
THE ART OF LEGAL WRITING
Writing is an acquired skill. Having good ideas but not being able to effectively put it across to others is a problem that many people face today. With proper training it is possible to get rid of this handicap. Like all skills, writing also requires some formal specialized training. The profession of a lawyer involves a lot of writing but a law student gets little or no formal training in writing while at law school. A student of law may refer to secondary sources like books to write an assignment. However a lawyer usually is required to refer to the primary sources of law for the purpose of his profession. Primary sources can be divided into two. They are case laws [judicial decisions] and enacted law [statutes, constitution and administrative regulations] Gathering of information therefore becomes very important and it becomes necessary that the information should be taken from the right sources.
The first information that needs to be collected is regarding the origin of the primary source of law. The rule is that enacted law prevails over case law and therefore, the search should always begin with the applicable statutes or the constitutional provision. In the absence of any statutory or constitutional provision, case laws take predominance.
The United States is a common law country and in common law countries, the judge made laws form an important part of the legal system. Decisions rendered by the judges, attain the status of law and are binding precedents. Some precedents have greater authoritative value than others. The courts are required to follow only binding precedents. Precedents become binding on a court only when the decision is by that court or a higher court.
The doctrine of Stare decisis constrain a judge to decide a case in accordance with the rules laid down in the previous decision. However in case the judge does not want to follow the same decision, he can repudiate the earlier decision and lay down a new rule different from the one previously adopted. This is usually done when the earlier decision has become outdated, due to changed conditions, when the earlier decision produced undesirable results or was guided by poor reasoning.
Therefore when writing an analysis on a problem, the search should always begin with the relevant statutes and then the relevant case laws interpreting the statutes. The author should always start with the relevant case laws from the highest court and then move on to other relevant decisions from that jurisdiction’s lower courts.
In case the citing of case law appears to be complicated, the citing of statutes is not too simple either. In the first instance, the enacted law has a hierarchy. Under the enacted law, the Constitution comes first, followed by the Federal statutes and treaties and then the State laws. Problems crop up in the matter of interpretation of statutes by courts since there may be ambiguity with regard to the language of the statute, the construction of the sentence etc.
With respect to the case laws also, some decided cases may have more weight age than others depending on the court which decided the matter, the reputation of the judge who decided the issue, the year of the decision etc.
Another important aspect that needs to be mentioned here is the topic of citation to the source. Citation to the source shows the authority from whom that particular sentence was taken. It also helps to avoid plagiarism. In case a sentence or paragraph comes very close to the original, it is better to quote it rather than to cite it.
Therefore in conclusion it can be said that to be a good legal writer, a person is required to have reasonable writing skills and an understanding of the relevant statutes and case laws on the subject. Last but not the least, when writing a topic, care should be taken to make sure that the citations is properly made. With a little guidance and some formal training everybody can master the art of legal writing.
Author:SanjanaNair
JuniorAssociate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Writing is an acquired skill. Having good ideas but not being able to effectively put it across to others is a problem that many people face today. With proper training it is possible to get rid of this handicap. Like all skills, writing also requires some formal specialized training. The profession of a lawyer involves a lot of writing but a law student gets little or no formal training in writing while at law school. A student of law may refer to secondary sources like books to write an assignment. However a lawyer usually is required to refer to the primary sources of law for the purpose of his profession. Primary sources can be divided into two. They are case laws [judicial decisions] and enacted law [statutes, constitution and administrative regulations] Gathering of information therefore becomes very important and it becomes necessary that the information should be taken from the right sources.
The first information that needs to be collected is regarding the origin of the primary source of law. The rule is that enacted law prevails over case law and therefore, the search should always begin with the applicable statutes or the constitutional provision. In the absence of any statutory or constitutional provision, case laws take predominance.
The United States is a common law country and in common law countries, the judge made laws form an important part of the legal system. Decisions rendered by the judges, attain the status of law and are binding precedents. Some precedents have greater authoritative value than others. The courts are required to follow only binding precedents. Precedents become binding on a court only when the decision is by that court or a higher court.
The doctrine of Stare decisis constrain a judge to decide a case in accordance with the rules laid down in the previous decision. However in case the judge does not want to follow the same decision, he can repudiate the earlier decision and lay down a new rule different from the one previously adopted. This is usually done when the earlier decision has become outdated, due to changed conditions, when the earlier decision produced undesirable results or was guided by poor reasoning.
Therefore when writing an analysis on a problem, the search should always begin with the relevant statutes and then the relevant case laws interpreting the statutes. The author should always start with the relevant case laws from the highest court and then move on to other relevant decisions from that jurisdiction’s lower courts.
In case the citing of case law appears to be complicated, the citing of statutes is not too simple either. In the first instance, the enacted law has a hierarchy. Under the enacted law, the Constitution comes first, followed by the Federal statutes and treaties and then the State laws. Problems crop up in the matter of interpretation of statutes by courts since there may be ambiguity with regard to the language of the statute, the construction of the sentence etc.
With respect to the case laws also, some decided cases may have more weight age than others depending on the court which decided the matter, the reputation of the judge who decided the issue, the year of the decision etc.
Another important aspect that needs to be mentioned here is the topic of citation to the source. Citation to the source shows the authority from whom that particular sentence was taken. It also helps to avoid plagiarism. In case a sentence or paragraph comes very close to the original, it is better to quote it rather than to cite it.
Therefore in conclusion it can be said that to be a good legal writer, a person is required to have reasonable writing skills and an understanding of the relevant statutes and case laws on the subject. Last but not the least, when writing a topic, care should be taken to make sure that the citations is properly made. With a little guidance and some formal training everybody can master the art of legal writing.
Author:SanjanaNair
JuniorAssociate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAW
A prudent person after analyzing and understanding the American Legal System may realize the complexity of American Law. The Constitutional Law is often contradictory. There is a debate over the topic Separation of Powers and the concept of federalism. The evolution of American law, like the Indian law is from the English Common law. Though the English Common Law was adopted in entirety American law went through drastic changes over the years. Case laws, customs, logic, precedents, local laws and rules, everything played an important role in shaping the American Constitution. When European settlers came to America they brought the French, Spanish and the Dutch laws. Eventually the framers of the Constitution framed it with the objective of providing fair and natural justice to all. The Constitution says about the wide powers of the State but often restricts the State’s power by making the federal supreme. For example, the United States Supreme Court has no power to decide on any issue of the State and so the State Constitutional rulings are immune from the reversal of the United States Supreme Court unless any federal subject is in dispute. The Commercial Clause of the Constitution grants the federal supremacy over the state law. The Legislature is vested with the power to abolish or modify the Common Law.
If we consider the hierarchy of law, starting from the highest to the lowest, federal constitution tops the hierarchy and the state common law is at the bottom. About the trial system we can say that there are three different stages in a trial: pre-trial, trial and post-trial stage. Trial courts have a single judge only. They conduct trial with or without jury depending on the type of the case and the choice of the parties. The judge has the power to punish for contempt of court. The trial court hears all the evidences and arguments presented by the parties. They determine the facts of the case and the application of the correct law to the facts. The facts cannot be changed or new facts cannot be presented on appeal. Pre-trial motions are conducted before the judge without the assistance of the jury. There are two appellate courts: the Intermediate Appellate Court and the Supreme Court. The judges of the Supreme Court are called Justices. The Intermediate Appellate Court may consist of 3 judges and the Supreme Court may have 5, 7-9 judges. In most of the cases right of appeal is granted only if discrepancies are obvious. The scope of appeal under the American legal system is much narrower.
Generally, when a pre-existing rule is in dispute, the constitution is subject to amendment and moreover the framers could not foresee of such a dispute. But still to the Americans, they hold their Constitution the Supreme Law of the land.
Author:Nesirin Vinod
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi
A prudent person after analyzing and understanding the American Legal System may realize the complexity of American Law. The Constitutional Law is often contradictory. There is a debate over the topic Separation of Powers and the concept of federalism. The evolution of American law, like the Indian law is from the English Common law. Though the English Common Law was adopted in entirety American law went through drastic changes over the years. Case laws, customs, logic, precedents, local laws and rules, everything played an important role in shaping the American Constitution. When European settlers came to America they brought the French, Spanish and the Dutch laws. Eventually the framers of the Constitution framed it with the objective of providing fair and natural justice to all. The Constitution says about the wide powers of the State but often restricts the State’s power by making the federal supreme. For example, the United States Supreme Court has no power to decide on any issue of the State and so the State Constitutional rulings are immune from the reversal of the United States Supreme Court unless any federal subject is in dispute. The Commercial Clause of the Constitution grants the federal supremacy over the state law. The Legislature is vested with the power to abolish or modify the Common Law.
If we consider the hierarchy of law, starting from the highest to the lowest, federal constitution tops the hierarchy and the state common law is at the bottom. About the trial system we can say that there are three different stages in a trial: pre-trial, trial and post-trial stage. Trial courts have a single judge only. They conduct trial with or without jury depending on the type of the case and the choice of the parties. The judge has the power to punish for contempt of court. The trial court hears all the evidences and arguments presented by the parties. They determine the facts of the case and the application of the correct law to the facts. The facts cannot be changed or new facts cannot be presented on appeal. Pre-trial motions are conducted before the judge without the assistance of the jury. There are two appellate courts: the Intermediate Appellate Court and the Supreme Court. The judges of the Supreme Court are called Justices. The Intermediate Appellate Court may consist of 3 judges and the Supreme Court may have 5, 7-9 judges. In most of the cases right of appeal is granted only if discrepancies are obvious. The scope of appeal under the American legal system is much narrower.
Generally, when a pre-existing rule is in dispute, the constitution is subject to amendment and moreover the framers could not foresee of such a dispute. But still to the Americans, they hold their Constitution the Supreme Law of the land.
Author:Nesirin Vinod
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi
Writing on legal authority on basis of primary sources
To be a good legal writer, the essential factors are the skills to write well and the basic understanding of law and how to interpret it. To basically do a good job one must be able to read quite a bit and have a very analytical mind. We have to do a lot of research to collect the necessary information which forms the basis for good writing. The essential factor is the primary sources. Primary sources can be broadly classified into: two.
• Case laws consisting of judicial decisions
• Enacted laws. Which includes constitution, statutes and administrative laws.
Analyzing a given problem will be an amalgamation of 1, the enacted laws that regulates the subject matter of that particular problem and 2. the decisions of cases involving similar situations and issues.
When we do a research of a particular problem we have to keep in mind first the enacted laws relevant to the given situation, but we also have to see the scope of similar relevant cases handled earlier and take an account of the decisions taken therein. If at all a particular statute or constitutional law is not given, then we have to rely on. earlier cases to provide the law on the subject.
Talking about how law works in the United States,
The system of law of United States is very similar to the law of England in that both follow the law of precedence. Both follow the common law principle. Common law is Judge- made law. What it means is that rule of law comes from the written decisions of judges who hear and decide litigations. When a case is decided by a judge it attains the status of law and becomes a precedent for future similar controversial cases. That means it has twin role. The decision resolves the litigation that is before the court and if the decision is published it becomes available for use by judge in later litigations. Since we are familiar with the structure of the court system of the United States Of America, I would like to stress upon the development of the law through the common law process.
Position of a court within the structure determines how decisions are taken as precedent. Some courts have greater value than the others. Another term we come across similar to Precedent is Stare decisis. It is the shortened form of a phrase in Latin which means “to stand by precedent and not to disturb settled points” What it means in simple words is that the court has to follow those precedents that are binding authority. The precedent becomes “the binding Authority” if the cases were decided by that court or an even higher court in the same jurisdiction.
United States have many jurisdictions so it is necessary to determine which precedents a court in each jurisdiction must follow besides its prior decision.
State Law:In the matter of state laws the state court must follow precedents from the higher court.If the trial court consists of different intermediate appellate court then it must follow precedence of the intermediate courts also.State courts are bound by the statute of that state as interpreted by the court. It is not necessary that the interpretation of the statute of one state be binding for another state.
Federal Law:The decisions of the supreme court of the United States is binding for all the courts in all jurisdictions for matters of constitutional and federal laws. For matters of Federal law court of appeals are bound by its own decisions and of the Supreme Court.The District court is not bound by the decisions of any other District court nor by decisions of any other federal court of appeal.
So in a nut shell since the common law and statutes are binding for all future litigations when we write on legal authority we should
• Identify the binding laws on the issue or problem.
• We should note the relevant statutes involved .
• Identify cases that interprets the statues.
Author:Susan Alex
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
To be a good legal writer, the essential factors are the skills to write well and the basic understanding of law and how to interpret it. To basically do a good job one must be able to read quite a bit and have a very analytical mind. We have to do a lot of research to collect the necessary information which forms the basis for good writing. The essential factor is the primary sources. Primary sources can be broadly classified into: two.
• Case laws consisting of judicial decisions
• Enacted laws. Which includes constitution, statutes and administrative laws.
Analyzing a given problem will be an amalgamation of 1, the enacted laws that regulates the subject matter of that particular problem and 2. the decisions of cases involving similar situations and issues.
When we do a research of a particular problem we have to keep in mind first the enacted laws relevant to the given situation, but we also have to see the scope of similar relevant cases handled earlier and take an account of the decisions taken therein. If at all a particular statute or constitutional law is not given, then we have to rely on. earlier cases to provide the law on the subject.
Talking about how law works in the United States,
The system of law of United States is very similar to the law of England in that both follow the law of precedence. Both follow the common law principle. Common law is Judge- made law. What it means is that rule of law comes from the written decisions of judges who hear and decide litigations. When a case is decided by a judge it attains the status of law and becomes a precedent for future similar controversial cases. That means it has twin role. The decision resolves the litigation that is before the court and if the decision is published it becomes available for use by judge in later litigations. Since we are familiar with the structure of the court system of the United States Of America, I would like to stress upon the development of the law through the common law process.
Position of a court within the structure determines how decisions are taken as precedent. Some courts have greater value than the others. Another term we come across similar to Precedent is Stare decisis. It is the shortened form of a phrase in Latin which means “to stand by precedent and not to disturb settled points” What it means in simple words is that the court has to follow those precedents that are binding authority. The precedent becomes “the binding Authority” if the cases were decided by that court or an even higher court in the same jurisdiction.
United States have many jurisdictions so it is necessary to determine which precedents a court in each jurisdiction must follow besides its prior decision.
State Law:In the matter of state laws the state court must follow precedents from the higher court.If the trial court consists of different intermediate appellate court then it must follow precedence of the intermediate courts also.State courts are bound by the statute of that state as interpreted by the court. It is not necessary that the interpretation of the statute of one state be binding for another state.
Federal Law:The decisions of the supreme court of the United States is binding for all the courts in all jurisdictions for matters of constitutional and federal laws. For matters of Federal law court of appeals are bound by its own decisions and of the Supreme Court.The District court is not bound by the decisions of any other District court nor by decisions of any other federal court of appeal.
So in a nut shell since the common law and statutes are binding for all future litigations when we write on legal authority we should
• Identify the binding laws on the issue or problem.
• We should note the relevant statutes involved .
• Identify cases that interprets the statues.
Author:Susan Alex
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Common Law Process and its Development
In United States, law is developed through litigations conducted in courts. Each state has its own jurisdiction and hierarchy of courts. The court system is organized along a vertical structure. The position of a court in this vertical structure determines the way its decisions are treated as precedents.
The system of Precedents has a companion doctrine called stare decisis which is a shortened form of the phrase Stare decisis et non quieta movere. The phrase means that the courts should follow the precedents by not disturbing the settled points. Therefore, the courts should follow only the precedents which have a binding authority on them.
Precedents can be either binding or persuasive according to the positions of the courts in the hierarchy within the specific jurisdiction. If there are precedents from a higher court of the same state jurisdiction on a particular point of law, then the judges of the lower court are constrained to decide a pending case according to the earlier decisions. Such a precedent is a binding authority on the lower courts in the vertical structure of court system. If there are some decisions from a higher court of a state, the judge of a lower court in another state is not bound to decide a pending case according to that decision. Precedents from another state jurisdiction have only persuasive authority. The Judge may take these decisions into account, but it is not necessary to follow them.
When we search for case authorities, we should search for binding authorities. If the case is a first impression case, we should look for how the courts in other jurisdictions have treated similar cases, so that those precedents will persuade the court to decide the case.
Except for state law issues, United States Supreme Court is the Appellate authority for all the courts in the United States of America. United States Supreme Court is the only court which is specifically created by the constitution. The composition and jurisdiction of the court are decided by Congress. It consists of 9 Judges including 8 Associate Justices and the Chief justice of The United States of America. The Court hears all the cases en banc, which means that all the 9 justices sit and make final decisions in all cases. A decision can be reviewed by the Supreme Court, either as a matter of right or through a writ of certiorari. The term certiorari means ‘bring up the record’. The Supreme Court maintains the supremacy and consistency of Federal Law by the exercise of appellate certiorari jurisdiction over the cases involving federal issues from lower federal courts and the highest courts of the states.
Author:Neethu Alex
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
In United States, law is developed through litigations conducted in courts. Each state has its own jurisdiction and hierarchy of courts. The court system is organized along a vertical structure. The position of a court in this vertical structure determines the way its decisions are treated as precedents.
The system of Precedents has a companion doctrine called stare decisis which is a shortened form of the phrase Stare decisis et non quieta movere. The phrase means that the courts should follow the precedents by not disturbing the settled points. Therefore, the courts should follow only the precedents which have a binding authority on them.
Precedents can be either binding or persuasive according to the positions of the courts in the hierarchy within the specific jurisdiction. If there are precedents from a higher court of the same state jurisdiction on a particular point of law, then the judges of the lower court are constrained to decide a pending case according to the earlier decisions. Such a precedent is a binding authority on the lower courts in the vertical structure of court system. If there are some decisions from a higher court of a state, the judge of a lower court in another state is not bound to decide a pending case according to that decision. Precedents from another state jurisdiction have only persuasive authority. The Judge may take these decisions into account, but it is not necessary to follow them.
When we search for case authorities, we should search for binding authorities. If the case is a first impression case, we should look for how the courts in other jurisdictions have treated similar cases, so that those precedents will persuade the court to decide the case.
Except for state law issues, United States Supreme Court is the Appellate authority for all the courts in the United States of America. United States Supreme Court is the only court which is specifically created by the constitution. The composition and jurisdiction of the court are decided by Congress. It consists of 9 Judges including 8 Associate Justices and the Chief justice of The United States of America. The Court hears all the cases en banc, which means that all the 9 justices sit and make final decisions in all cases. A decision can be reviewed by the Supreme Court, either as a matter of right or through a writ of certiorari. The term certiorari means ‘bring up the record’. The Supreme Court maintains the supremacy and consistency of Federal Law by the exercise of appellate certiorari jurisdiction over the cases involving federal issues from lower federal courts and the highest courts of the states.
Author:Neethu Alex
Junior Associate
LegalEase Solutions Pvt Ltd
Kochi.
Friday, March 14, 2008
LegalEase,Kochi celebrates Tariq Akbar's b'day...
From your old friend's and new...............,
Happy B'day to you........................!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Guest Post: Offshoring of Legal Research and Writing
As mentioned in the earlier post welcoming 2008, this is the first guest post in the
series. The author of this post is Tariq Hafeez, the President of and General Counsel for LegalEase Solutions LLC.
Introduction
As legal process outsourcing (LPO) continues to expand in market share, so too will the number of service offerings from LPOs. Law, much like medicine, is a profession ripe with specialties and specialists. The various types of legal support services that can be offshored are as varied and diverse as the legal market itself. In today’s nascent LPO market, most LPO providers offer a wide array of legal support services—a one stop shop for legal outsourcing. As the LPO industry continues to develop and mature, LPOs will differentiate themselves not only by size and capabilities, but also by what area of law they are best suited to outsource.
Legal research and writing (LR&R) services encompass both drafting research memoranda as well as drafting legal pleadings of all varieties—trial motions, briefs in support, appellate briefs, writs, etc.
Read full article in
www.businessweek.com
“ The above article has been reprinted from www.businessweek.com and
LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”
As mentioned in the earlier post welcoming 2008, this is the first guest post in the
series. The author of this post is Tariq Hafeez, the President of and General Counsel for LegalEase Solutions LLC.
Introduction
As legal process outsourcing (LPO) continues to expand in market share, so too will the number of service offerings from LPOs. Law, much like medicine, is a profession ripe with specialties and specialists. The various types of legal support services that can be offshored are as varied and diverse as the legal market itself. In today’s nascent LPO market, most LPO providers offer a wide array of legal support services—a one stop shop for legal outsourcing. As the LPO industry continues to develop and mature, LPOs will differentiate themselves not only by size and capabilities, but also by what area of law they are best suited to outsource.
Legal research and writing (LR&R) services encompass both drafting research memoranda as well as drafting legal pleadings of all varieties—trial motions, briefs in support, appellate briefs, writs, etc.
Read full article in
www.businessweek.com
“ The above article has been reprinted from www.businessweek.com and
LegalEase Solutions LLC does not hold any rights to the same”
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