Legal process outsourcing (LPO) is indeed the buzzword in the outsourcing industry today. Most estimates indicate India has more than 60% of the market for delivery of offshore legal services.
According to a TechNavio analyst forecast, the LPO market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27.7% through 2014, though estimates of the exact market size do vary. This growth has not only managed to catch the attention of fresh law graduates on the lookout for a lucrative career that jets-sets to a secure future, they have also attracted seasoned legal eagles opting for a change from practicing law in courts to a corporate setup.
The career path for a legal professional in the LPO framework may be in one of two directions: either specialising in a single practice, such as intellectual property, or working across different areas, like intellectual property, contracts, research and transcription, etc. Both are equally rewarding, it simply depends on what you want from your job: versatility or specialisation.
LPOs are constantly recruiting highly educated and capable legal professionals to work on not just back-end documentation but also on higher-order tasks such as contract management, drafting, and review; due diligence for M&As; patent support for intellectual property, etc.
The growth in LPOs is due to the larger market forces that are driving enterprise legal functions to transform into leaner organisations. In-house counsels are no longer free from the cost cutting and streamlining imposed on all other support functions. As a result, enterprise legal functions are looking for ways to reduce costs. These methods include erecting captive centres in low cost areas, pressuring major law firms to reduce fees and use offshore resources, and engaging offshore LPO providers directly to outsource their legal needs.
Indian LPOs, with their well-qualified, quality workforce of affordable English-speaking lawyers and graduates, some of whom are UK and/or US educated, and a national legal system that is uniform to the systems of the US, UK, Canada and various other European countries, are turning out to be the preferred outsourcing destinations for global companies.
Initially, LPOs offered only basic e-discovery services to their clients, but, after the economic crisis of 2008, LPOs started offering more complex and sophisticated services, such as legal research, contract management, review and compliance, intellectual property, patents, etc, in addition to document review. Although a part of the broader industry of business process outsourcing (BPO), the LPO sector is considered niche and relies heavily on domain knowledge and expertise, making skilled professionals indispensable and the industry?s most important asset.
To keep up with the pace of business coming in, Indian LPO providers are also increasingly utilising US and UK-licensed attorneys to create greater quality controls, expand into more sophisticated offerings, instill higher confidence in the ethical treatment of client-sensitive data and deliver rigorous training sessions.
As a result of all of these factors, Indian lawyers, paralegals and law graduates are increasingly seeking a career path in LPOs, a path that will provide them with an opportunity to hone their managerial skills and enjoy a corporate lifestyle. LPOs are not only providing scope for fresh law graduates to begin their careers but also enabling lawyers in their mid-careers to gain corporate and executive experience. In an industry which heavily relies on domain knowledge and expertise, the demand for hiring highly educated professionals has gone up, not just from the legal fraternity, but also from the engineering and management fields.
With an increasing number of global companies, turning to India for outsourcing legal work, the demand for domain experts and skilled personnel will rise even further, positioning India as a key recruiter of LPO talent.
Bob Gogel
The writer is CEO, Integreon Managed Services