Wake up call to law firms!
In one of my previous posts, ‘UK Law Firms: Catching up on offshoring‘, I shared my views about UK based law firms opening up to the idea of offshoring. The growing interest amongst the buyer community was also evident at a recent conference that I attended on ‘Legal Process Outsourcing and Offshoring‘, organized by the Lawyer magazine in London.
The fact that several partners and attorneys participated in the session reflects the high level of interest in the subject. Several law firms indicated that their clients are increasingly suggesting using offshore service providers. The motive behind corporates pressurizing law firms is quite obvious – lower costs.
However, from the conversations that I had with lawyers, I noticed a hint of apprehension with respect to offshoring. Why? Yes, it is quality, client conflict, data privacy and confidentiality. But these concerns can be addressed. So, what is it that law firms are really worried about? Is this something to do with the way ‘offshoring’ is perceived by lawyers? Possibly. Lawyers view offshoring as a drastic change in their way of working. The concept of sending legal work to a company situated some 6,000 miles away can be unsettling for them. However, it must be noted that while offshoring does entail some changes to existing workflow processes, these changes are mostly during initial deployment.
Corporates on the other hand understand the benefits of offshoring. In fact, corporates are the ones campaigning offshoring to their firms. They are convinced that offshoring and its cost-economics will lead to a situation where in-house lawyers will be able to focus on high value and wider range of legal services. Leah Cooper, Managing Attorney, Rio Tinto discussed their offshoring initiative where the mining giant outsourced certain services to CPA Global. This initiative helped them save $8 million in six months! Cooper’s talk was a wake up call to the firms. There was a clear message from the corporates that the firms will need to explore the offshore option (sooner or later) whether they like it or not.
So…does this mean more business for offshore service providers? Most definitely yes. But are the service providers equipped to tap this opportunity? More on this later…meanwhile, here’s an interesting read on the conference by Arun.
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