The Managing Onshore Attorney - Part II

Law.com's Legal Blog Watch summarizes a recent study of emerging trends for contract lawyers conducted by The Posse List. In regards to Legal Process Outsourcing, they write:

"Though firms are under pressure to cut costs, data security and quality of work are two key deterrents to sending projects to India. Still, Bufithis notes that "off-shoring is not going away." It's moving toward a blended approach, with a first pass at review in India followed by second review in the United States."

Here is another acknowledgment that the blended onshore/offshore model provides the benefit of a second layer of quality control and oversight from the onshore attorneys, and it dovetails nicely with the second part of our conversation with Managing Onshore Attorney, Chris Crawford.

Q: Generally, what is the breakdown in terms of the percentage of work executed by the offshore attorneys and the percentage executed by the onshore staff?

A: “It can really vary. Depending on the complexity of the work, it ranges from 10% onshore to 90% onshore. The benefit to the client is that the cost does not change whether the work is performed by a U.S. trained attorney or an India trained attorney.”

Q: What are the types of work that you have seen translate successfully to being outsourced?

A: "India is a common law country, and the attorneys there have all gone to law school. So they can be trained to do any legal work that a U.S. attorney can be trained to do. We have successfully assisted law firms and corporations in many areas of the law including research and writing, contract drafting and review, discovery and document review, drafting of motions, briefs, and pleadings, as well as all general paralegal services."

Q: What are the educational backgrounds of the offshore attorneys?

A: “All Indian attorneys have graduated from an accredited Indian law school, which requires either three or five years of schooling, depending on the law degree obtained. We only hire those that have graduated within the top 10% of their class.”

Q: How are the attorneys trained once they join LegalEase?

A: “LegalEase has its own six month training program, designed by a Harvard Law School graduate. All LegalEase attorneys must complete that training program before working on live projects. This program is designed to teach the attorneys the major distinctions between U.S. and Indian law, and to give the Indian attorneys an opportunity to further hone their writing skills.”

Q: How do you address ethical concerns, e.g. how do the off-shore attorneys ensure confidentiality and conflict checking?

A: “All attorneys working for LegalEase sign confidentiality agreements. In addition, most clients require that LegalEase employees sign confidentiality agreements before commencing work on a project. Regarding conflicts of interest, we have an internal conflict checking system to ensure that we do not undertake work that would present a potential conflict of interest with another client.”

Q: How do you guarantee client satisfaction?

A: “We have always provided our clients with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If the client is for some reason dissatisfied, we only ask that they provide the reason for the dissatisfaction and give U.S. an opportunity to re-work the project until it is to their satisfaction.”

You can read the first part of our conversation here.

The World Gets Flatter -- Virtual Law Firms

Another dispatch from the front line of the rapidly shifting landscape of legal outsourcing and offshoring.

Virtual law firms are not a new or particularly cutting-edge idea. A wikipedia page on virtual law firms notes that they have been around since 2004. And, if you think about it, even having a wikipedia page probably precludes any sort of "underground" status.

The ABA's Law Practice Today generally characterizes virtual law firms as having the following traits:

1. A stable core group of attorneys
2. Established collaborative relationships with other specialized law firms that possess expertise that’s occasionally needed
3. Technologically linked infrastructure via appropriate computer and telecommunications systems
   
4. Ability to expand and reduce personnel as needed

In other words, we're talking about a team of attorneys -- saving on overhead by forgoing the traditional bricks and mortar office buildings -- networked together via the web.

Some virtual law firms employ attorneys scattered throughout the U.S.. Other virtual law firms, like Rimon Law Group (a firm with a very creative and intriguing billing model that factors client satisfaction), manages to reduce overhead even further by including attorneys who live in locations with lower costs of living -- areas in the United States as well as other countries.

And this makes perfect sense as a business model.

Because virtual law firms employing U.S. attorneys located outside the U.S. are leveraging the exact same dynamic as Legal Process Outsourcing: Work is completed by qualified colleagues who live in areas with lower costs of living, and those savings in overhead translate to lower costs to the client.

An interesting element at play here is the distinction in terminology.

Whereas a network of U.S. attorneys living in different countries is a "virtual law firm", a network combining U.S. attorneys with attorneys trained and accredited in other countries is thought of as "offshoring".

As the lines between old guard legal paradigms and new, global legal paradigms blur, it is likely that the terminology will, too. So, when an LPO engages offshore attorneys to perform some of the more redundant legal processes (litigation support, legal research/writing, contract/document review, etc.), couldn't we just call them "virtual associates"?

The Onshore Attorney's Role in the Review Process

When United States attorneys evaluate the efficiencies and savings of outsourcing certain legal tasks, they find themselves weighing the merits of two different LPO business models: The entirely offshore model versus the blended onshore/offshore model.

While an entirely offshore model connects the client directly with the offshore office, the blended onshore/offshore model inserts a layer of United States based attorneys to work with the client and shepherd each project.

This layer of onshore managing attorneys serves a number of crucial functions, including project management, quality control, and as a liaison directly from one U.S. attorney to another.

LegalEase's managing onshore attorney, Chris Crawford, recently explained the organizational structure and the managing attorneys role in the workflow and review process. Here's an excerpt from that article.

When a client approaches an LPO with a blended onshore/offshore model, how is the work organized and what is the workflow process?

“Initially, the client will contact the U.S. office about a project. A U.S. based attorney will then get the client specifications for the project, including all facts, documents and directions needed to complete the project. The U.S. based attorney then reviews the project, doing preliminary research and drafting as necessary. He/she then assigns components of the project to the offshore attorneys with specific instructions for the completion of the project.”

What is the review process?

“The U.S. and offshore team work together to complete the project, much the same way an associate and a partner would work to complete a project at a law firm. There is a constant, open line of communication between the two offices for feedback and to answer any questions that may arise. Once the project is complete, a U.S. attorney gives it final review and approval for delivery.”

Media Round Up

LegalEase Solutions and one of the company's founders, Tariq Hafeez, were profiled recently as a Michigan based business in the Ann Arbor Business Review. A few of the topics touched upon...

The ABA's approval of legal process outsourcing:

"He said the industry was boosted by an August 2008 ruling from the American Bar Association's ethics committee outlining lawyers' responsibilities in outsourcing, but deeming it morally acceptable.

The practice is allowable, the panel found, if the participating lawyers "adhere to ethics rules regarding competence, supervision, protection of confidential information, reasonable fees and not assisting unauthorized practice of law," according to an ABA statement."

Perceptive challenges still facing LPOs.

"Hafeez said confidentiality and quality are the two issues prospective clients hesitate most about. He said the company's internal processes of training the lawyers in India and doing all quality control in Ann Arbor should calm those fears."

Efficiencies and cost savings.

"Like most outsourcing, the business model is relatively simple - use offshore employees for repetitive and less complex tasks at lower costs. In LegalEase's case, Indian lawyers fluent in English and trained in American law can take care of legal research, drafts of pleadings and document review, among other services, at $60 per hour or less, Hafeez said. "

To read the complete profile, click here.

Also, this blog itself received a nice recognition from oDesk.com as one of the 100 Best Outsourcing and Offshoring Blogs and Resources.

More Commoditization -- Putting A Price On Experience

Still ruminating on our recent post regarding the commoditization of some legal services.

The commoditization is coming hand in hand with the unbundling of legal services. Some legal tasks, which historically have been conducted en masse in one office, are being fragmented and driven down the workflow pyramid to their most cost efficient layer -- even if that layer is in another zip code.

This natural process (aligning the work with the most cost-efficient execution of the work), which has always occurred within the confines of a single firm, is slowly taking place across the country and the planet. Essentially, the walls of the single firm are coming down. And, with the removal of some office walls, the consumer, end-user, and attorneys themselves have increased access to legal process efficiencies.

To put it another way, the unbundling of legal work is a natural byproduct of increased access.

As for the increased access, well, there's that darned internet again. Okay, it is both obvious and a monumental understatement to say that the internet has and is changing the landscape of many professions (ask any travel agent if his/her job evovled in the mid 1990's). But there is no denying that, in terms of evolution, we are knee deep in primordial soup watching a surge of business models bubble to the top, each with the goal of leveraging the end-user's increased access to legal efficiencies.

One of these new strands of business models that is especially noteworthy is unbundling and commoditizing not just legal tasks, but another entity entirely -- legal experience.

Tologix offers software to attorney's who conduct research in specialty areas of law. A firm's (or even a single attorney's) years of work can be collected, captured, and organized so that the aggregate can be searched and monetized on a subscription basis to end-users.

Websites like justanswer.com allow consumers to name their price and receive one-off legal information directly from a network of experienced attorneys online.

Both are prime examples of the wave of creative business models surging right now to leverage the unbundling of legal offerings resulting from increased accessibility via the internet.

Again, it's way too early to say which models will thrive and which will flame out in short order. But it sure is fascinating to watch.