Re-upped Round up August 5: LPOs in India drawing talent from abroad

The New York Times reports on how the Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) in India is drawing legal talent from abroad. Christopher Wheeler, an Assistant Attorney General from New York has made his shift to a suburb of New Delhi where he handles Pangea3, a legal outsourcing firm with a team of 110 plus lawyers under his wing. According to Greg McPolin, Managing Director of the company’s litigation services, Pangea3 gets more resumes from US lawyers. The Indian lawyers who are employed at these LPOs do the work usually assigned to a junior lawyer in the US who handle issues varying from document review, due diligence, contract management etc. In order to attract more clientele and work, LPOs in India are looking to recruit experienced British and US lawyers. The number of LPOs in India has jumped from 40 in 2005 to 140 in 2009. Revenues are expected to be at Rs. 1,980 crore ($440 million) this year, an uptake of 38 percent from 2008. David B. Wilkins, Director Harvard Law School says, “There is an increasing pressure by clients to reduce costs and increase efficiency and with companies already familiar with outsourcing tasks like information technology work to India, legal services is a natural next step.” There are many more in the playing field of LPOs with Leah Cooper, who left her job as a managing lawyer for a giant mining company in order to operate as Director for CPA Global which is one of the top Indian LPOs with a presence of more than 1500 lawyers spread over Europe, US and India. Clifford Chance is yet another top tier law firm to enter the LPO pool. Mark Ford, Director for Clifford Chance Knowledge Center, New Delhi has 30 Indian law school graduates who serve Clifford Chance’s global offices. Ford lived in India for six months to set up the center, and now manages it from London. General Electric and UnitedLex an LPO follow suit.

Re-upped Round up August 5: LPOs in India drawing talent from abroad barandbench.com Thu, Aug 5, 2010