

Outsourcing to India draws Western Lawyers - vorg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/business/global/05legal.html

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mattm
Skimming through the comments on the NYT site, I thought this person offered
the most insight:

[http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/0...](http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/business/global/05legal.html?permid=168#comment168)

"I'm one of those U.S. lawyers who outsourced himself to India. I did not do
it for lack of a job elsewhere. I'm a Columbia Law graduate and one of the
founding partners of a successful New York and London-based media law firm. I
went to India enthusiastically, to take part in a much-needed revolution in
the way legal services are delivered in the West. Imagine a new legal
landscape where high-quality services are affordable. Imagine deals getting
done, because the attorneys don't kill them, with overlawyering and
overcharging. Contemplate court cases and other disputes being resolved on
their merits, rather than simply on the basis of whether one side cannot or
will not pay the absurdly high costs of litigation. Think about legal
professionals located in places that suit the interests of clients, rather
than in the most expensive parts of the most expensive cities in the world.
Consider the resultant savings when legal bills are based on services, not
real estate. Envision deals and cases staffed by the most talented and
enthusiastic lawyers available. Open your mind to the possibility that some of
those lawyers are in India. I know from experience that they are.

..."

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rsmith670
I'm one of those U.S. lawyers who outsourced himself to India. I did not do it
for lack of a job elsewhere. I'm a Columbia Law graduate and one of the
founding partners of a successful New York and London based media law firm. I
went to India enthusiastically, to take part in a much-needed revolution in
the way legal services are delivered in the West.

Imagine a new legal landscape where high-quality services are affordable.
Imagine deals getting done, because the attorneys don't kill them, with
overlawyering and overcharging. Contemplate court cases and other disputes
being resolved on their merits, rather than simply on the basis of whether one
side cannot or will not pay the absurdly high costs of litigation. Think about
legal professionals located in places that suit the interests of clients,
rather than in the most expensive parts of the most expensive cities in the
world. Consider the resultant savings when legal bills are based on services,
not real estate. Envision deals and cases staffed by the most talented and
enthusiastic lawyers available. Open your mind to the possibility that some of
those lawyers are in India. I know from experience that they are.

And consider the fact that this kind of outsourcing actually creates more
legal jobs in the West, rather than cutting them. Every time a deal is done,
or a litigation is waged, because legal services are suddenly affordable, it
means more work for the Western lawyers involved in supervision, editing,
negotiating, and/or appearing in court. This is not only a dream. It is
happening every day, thanks to legal outsourcing in India.

For example, a Fortune 100 client of my law firm specifically requested that
the legal research and analysis needed for a series of multi-million-dollar
deals in the U.S. be done by Indian attorneys at our offshore operation in
Mysore. This is a situation where, if not for a Western law firm’s off-shoring
capabilities, no lawyers would have been hired, because typical Western legal
fees would have made it prohibitive. The work would have been done either in-
house, or not at all. Because the India team made it possible for the deals to
happen, Western law firms ultimately got more business, handling the otherwise
non-existent transactions.

A similar phenomenon has happened in litigation, where corporate clients have
chosen to defend themselves against meritless lawsuits, using both U.S. and
Indian lawyers. The most high-profile examples are some of the cases filed in
Los Angeles against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. They have been dismissed
instead of settled, because of the successful teamwork among attorneys in the
U.S. and India. Without legal outsourcing, there might have been no U.S.
lawyers hired for any significant litigation work at all, because frivolous
cases often are settled at the outset, just to avoid the usual U.S. litigation
costs. The off-shoring of legal work is leading to a new breed of benign tort
reform, as defendants facing bogus or inflated tort claims are choosing to
litigate and win. This in turn discourages such claims. And the money that
otherwise would be spent by defendants on nuisance payouts can be plowed by
corporations right back into the U.S. economy.

Does any of this threaten the existence of U.S. law firms? No, unless you want
to define American law firms as inherently dinosaur-like, and incapable of
changing to avoid extinction. No, the threat is not to law firms themselves,
but to an outmoded model of law practice that clients increasingly will not
tolerate. We are witnessing the start of a positive, paradigm shift in the way
that legal services will be delivered in the West.

Some law firms are embracing the change, and reaping rewards from it. One
example is our own law firm. As a result of setting up our own legal
outsourcing company in India, our law firm is receiving more client revenue,
not less. This is coming in part from (a) existing clients who send us
“elective” legal work that otherwise would never be performed, due to cost,
but which is not a problem when our U.S. lawyers are paid only to supervise
and edit the work of attorneys in India, and (b) new clients who come to our
law firm only because of our reputation for developing an alternative to the
old model.

So there is no need to start making funeral arrangements for the U.S. legal
industry. Forward-thinking law firms will adapt, embrace legal off-shoring,
and learn how to make it serve not only the interests of their clients, but
their own.

Russell Smith SmithDehn LLP SDD Global Solutions <http://www.sddglobal.com>

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arethuza
Lawyers have always got one eye on who holds the risk regarding professional
negligence claims - if offshore companies are willing to assume this risks and
are insured then I can see them being pretty popular for some kinds of work.

I can imagine some pretty interesting international litigation arising from
this!

~~~
pmccool
From the article:

"Employees at legal outsourcing companies in India are not allowed by Indian
law to give legal advice to clients in the West, no matter their
qualifications. Instead, legal outsourcing companies perform a lot of the
functions that a junior lawyer might do in a American law firm."

Given that they're not giving legal advice, I can't see them assuming the risk
of professional negligence claims.

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CatalystFactory
Can't wait for someone to sue for malpractice when confidential documents go
viral, originating from a leak in India.

I believe the average case in India's civil courts is over 5 years and I would
guess most companies are judgment proof and insurance won't cover outsourced
work.

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c1sc0
As the crisis moves forward we will probably see a fraction of _every_
profession moved to developing countries. Either by Western professionals who
move there to enjoy the lower cost of living or outright replacement by
outsourced professionals. So this doesn't really surprise me.

I've started to think about outsourcing as a long-overdue redistribution of
wealth & as such I'm not opposed to it: if you can work more efficiently by
outsourcing, you _should_ outsource. Most employees in the West are spoiled
brats & deserve to be shaken a little anyway.

~~~
gaius
But no-one wants to live in a world like that. Imagine

    
    
        * All airlines are like RyanAir
        * All restaurants are fast food
        * All supermarkets are Lidl
        * All music is Autotune
        * All clothes are polyester
    

A race to the bottom is stupid and ultimately self-destructive, the money you
save in the short term you lose tenfold in the long term when everything you
actually want is bespoke because the middle-market mass producers have all
been bankrupted.

~~~
cynicalkane
So if we outsource stuff to India, all the sit-down resturants in the United
States will be forced to close?

What?

~~~
olefoo
If there isn't a sufficiently large class of people with both the money and
the leisure time to be able to support the restaurant industry; yes.

It's like this, if people who were earning enough to afford a decent sized
apartment in a safe neighborhood with enough left over to eat out once in a
while are all fired and replaced by overseas workers; their disposable income
spending goes away too. And thus all of the businesses that were dependent on
their being customers go away too.

~~~
yummyfajitas
If we outsource lawyers, now everyone who was previously a lawyer can do other
productive work; to keep things simple, imagine they all become
maids/housekeepers. After this transition, we get the same legal services we
had before (but provided by different people) and some people have cleaner
houses.

This may be bad for the lawyers and people in India who need legal services,
but it's good for everyone else.

~~~
olefoo
But maids and dishwashers don't eat out as often or as well as journeyman
lawyers. What happens to places subject to this type of dislocation is similar
to what happens to ecosystems undergoing desertification; fewer species, and
the ones that survive are hardier and use far fewer resources. The trattorias
go away, and all that's left are taco stands and bento carts.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's certainly true that Legal Grounds Cafes (a chain of coffee shops which is
often situated near courthouses) might suffer. But on the other hand, a
consumer of legal services has more money to spend on restaurant meals.

Over the past 20-30 years, we have outsourced a huge amount of labor to other
countries, and we outsourced even more of it to machines. And yet, we are more
prosperous, have more consumer goods, and we generally eat out more often. Why
is that?

(Incidentally, I generally find that the truck food is superior to restaurant
food in Jersey City. I love thetacotruck and the H1B cart isn't bad either. Au
Bon Pain, meh.)

------
akshayubhat
Pangea3 a firm mentioned in that report is funded by Sequoia Capital
<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/greg-mcpolin-esq/3/938/8a1>

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dantheman
As technology has improved the capital investment required to develop a modern
economy has greatly reduced. Improvements in communications, computers,
electronics, and shipping can allow anywhere to become a modern city -- e.g.
dubai. So I'd expect skilled workers to move to cheaper areas and
maintain/improve their quality of life.

~~~
sasvari
As I second to that in principal, I do also have my doubts. India, China and
the other emerging economies do have some drawbacks regarding _quality of
life_ (some more, some less): _infrastructure, legal system, existing and/or
arising environmental problems ..._ , just to name a few. Most western
countries still have advantages of location, which might get more important in
the nearer future. Just some thoughts ...

~~~
vorg
Although quality of life in the whole of India or China is less than in the
West, quality of life in a well-defined portion (e.g. city area) of these
developing countries will often be competitive, e.g. Dalian in China.

As for infrastructure, I recently rode on the recently completed Wuhan to
Guangzhou high-speed railway, cruising at average speed of 330km/hr, now the
fastest railway in the world.

India beats China regards reliability of legal system, though many Shenzhen-
based ventures use Hong Kong for legal activities. And of course India's
internet is more open.

~~~
Retric
The USA's "terrible" railroad network is actually the best railroad network
for transporting bulk goods of any country in the world. It's old but it
actually works vary well.

~~~
mallipeddi
You read that recent Economist article didn't you? Anyways it was an
interesting article - I was amazed rail freight charges are lower in America
than India

~~~
whatajoke
In India, freight charges are used to subsidise passenger traffic

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ivenkys
Another day - another article on outsourcing. This is not particularly new or
newsworthy i think. All kinds of grunt work across different industries will
move to cheaper locations , its just inevitable.

~~~
vorg
India seems to remain THE outsourcing destination for information-based
industries, whether software, legal work, accounting gruntwork, securities
analysis or whatever. Seems like the last 4 yrs has seen a sudden growth in
legal work going there which will no doubt transform that industry the way IT
has been. Will Hollywood someday move everything to Bollywood, as Canada and
NZ become more expensive?

~~~
mallipeddi
That's already happening:
[http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb2008...](http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2008/gb20080618_504190.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily)

~~~
whatajoke
That is not outsourcing in any sense of the word. It is an Indian film company
entering into a joint venture with a hollywood major.

