Legal Research Growing Globally [Daily Herald]

U.S. Losing Legal Work to Overseas Firms [delawareonline]

In the article, titled “Using an Independent Contractor in Your Legal Practice”, Ms. Tanowitz explains how solo and small firm lawyers can use independent contactor lawyers on a project-by-project basis when things get busy (rather than hire a full-time associate). Ms. Tanowitz, in fact, not only uses other lawyers to outsource some of her work when things get busy, but she also serves as an independent contractor for other lawyers in the Boston area when times are slow.

But why should Ms. Tanowitz be limited to working with lawyers in the Boston area? She’s not anymore. Thanks to the Internet, now lawyers can (1) outsource some of their workload to other lawyers anywhere in the world in an auction format, and (2) find additional work being outsourced by other lawyers when times are slow.

We think this can change the way some lawyers practice law. But we’d like to hear what you think.

Using an Independent Contractor in Your Legal Practice [via the New Lawyer]

Check out the site. I think it just went online very recently…there aren’t too many projects posted as yet. But, I think it has potential.

Peter’s right, we did go online very recently (less than two weeks ago), and we’re working to get the word out as best we can so that people will register and start posting more projects on the site.

You can read Peter’s entire post on Peter Olson’s Solo in Chicago

A New York lawyer may ethically outsource legal support services overseas to a non-lawyer, if the New York lawyer (a) rigorously supervises the non-lawyer, so as to avoid aiding the non-lawyer in the unauthorized practice of law and to ensure that the non-lawyer’s work contributes to the lawyer’s competent representation of the client; (b) preserves the client’s confidences and secrets when outsourcing; (c) avoids conflicts of interest when outsourcing; (d) bills for outsourcing appropriately; and (e) when necessary, obtains advance client consent to outsourcing.

Adam Ketcher of Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates has a nice article summarizing the opinion and describing what it means for New York lawyers.

New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2006-3 [via New York City Bar Association Website]
New York City Bar Ethics Opinion Permits Legal Services Outsourcing [via ILW.com]

8. Delegate.

Worried that you’ll spend too much time blogging? Consider hiring someone to manage the technical aspects of your blog, such as uploading posts and graphics, tracking replies to posts, working on search engine optimization. The expense may be far less than the time spent updating and managing — no matter how easy with TypePad or other tools — that take you away from other marketing activities or even from your practice.

Taken one step further, lawyers can outsource the entire function of their blog — they can have someone design the look and feel of the blog, have someone else write the content that is posted to the blog (with the lawyer reviewing the content prior to posting), and have someone else manage the technical aspects of the blog. The problem used to be finding the right people to handle these tasks; however, with more and more websites on the internet providing easy access to these resources, this scenario is likely to become commonplace.

You can read more about Edward Poll’s writings at the LawBiz Blog

Ten Ways Blogs Boost a Law Firm’s Image [Law.com]

The latest is Clifford Chance, one of the largest law firms in the world, with 29 offices in 20 countries, which was to announce Friday a plan to consolidate and move big chunks of its administrative work, like accounting and technological support, to Delhi by next spring.

The shift to India could eventually result in as much as $18 million a year in savings, the law firm estimates.

As more client try to manage their skyrocketing legal expenses and keep lawyers’ billing rates down, more large firms will continue to push certain administrative and back-office tasks to lower-cost providers and areas. This is, and will likely continue to be, a relatively slow evolution in large firm culture and management:

About a year ago when White & Case, another law firm, considered hiring a company in India to handle word- processing activities, it wanted to make sure that documents going over its computer network could not be intercepted or that individuals working in India could not print out the documents or take them home.

And while Richard McKenna, the chief administrative officer for White & Case, said he had been happy with the work the outside firm had done and that some marketing functions had also been moved overseas, he had concerns about sending other documents too far from home.

“We do continue to look at outsourcing as a way to improve efficiencies and manage infrastructure costs, but it’s not a quick decision that we would make,” he said.

Law firms get outsourcing bug [via The New York Times]
“OUTSOURCING” - clients will prefer firms who do it, sooner than you think [via Gerry Riskin]

Our impression, based on reading and talking to onshore and offshore contacts, is that the volume of work moving offshore is not as large as the growth in our list might suggest. One sign of “more smoke than fire” is that several companies on the original list are no longer in business. Another sign is an absence of visible consolidation, which typically accompanies rapidly growing markets. (Just look at the e-discovery market for a great example of consolidation in a growing market.)

Second, and not surprisingly, the greatest growth is in administrative functions, not pure legal functions:

Bigger opportunities probably lie in outsourcing secretarial support and document processing and other law firm administrative functions. Already, several companies on our list offer outsourced word processing. The continuing merger trend among law firms will, we think, ultimately lead to more outsourcing of all sorts. Right now, many newly merged firms are dealing with lawyer and operations integration issues. Once full integration has occurred (which can take several years), outsourcing will likely increase.

Finally, outsourcing by large firms is picking up momentum, but small firms are also taking advantage of outsourcing opportunities. The article quotes an upcoming article from John Tredennick:

“the ease with which lawyers can outsource work to remote parts of the globe. Today, you might consider hiring a paralegal or secretary who lives in another state or even a different country (and people are doing just that). You can speak with them over the Internet without incurring a long distance charge. You can also send files to someone thousands of miles away faster than you could walk down the hall with a dictation cassette.”

Offshoring legal services certainly has a long way to go, and the path is not an easy one. However, I expect that nearsourcing (e.g., hiring someone a city or a state away) will grow at a much faster rate than offshoring, especially as technology continues to shrink distances. However, as John Tredennick observes, with the growth of the Internet, nearsourcing (and outsourcing generally) is often more efficient than walking down the hall. And that’s one of the most interesting trends of all.

Developments in Legal Outsourcing and Offshoring (via LLRX.com)

In his blog post, he quotes from one of his recent articles where he wrote:

The core business of law firms is a combination of solving legal problems and helping clients cope with difficult situations. An old adage says that lawyers are finders (business getters), minders (relationship managers), or grinders (ones who crank out legal work). Today, lawyers who are great at “client hand holding” typically rely on a partner or associate to do the legal work. Could the minder instead outsource this to a lawyer in another organization? The point is that even in what many would consider the core business of law firms lie potential outsourcing opportunities.

We’ve designed LawSourcing to help finders and minders reach grinders. Frankly, we think this will play a fundamental role in the future of legal outsourcing.

You can read Ron’s entire post on the Prism Legal Consulting Blog.

New Legal Market Outsourcing Service [via Prism Legal Consulting]
Inside vs. Outside: When Does it Make Sense for Law Firms to Outsource? [via Law Practice Today]