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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

For All You Lawyer Haters Out There
Posted by Citizen Carrie | 7:29 PM
I have good news for you! Instead of your harsh slogan of "Kill all the lawyers", you can do the next best thing and send them out of the country.

On Wednesday, January 16 and Thursday, January 17, 2008, the American Conference Institute will be hosting the "India LPO Summit" at The Grand Hyatt in New York City.
Forrester Research forecasts that the value of legal outsourcing to India will grow to $4 billion by 2015 from $80 million today. Legal Process Outsourcing, or LPO as it is popularly called, is the latest trend in outsourcing. The impact of globalization along with the significant cost savings and increases in productivity and efficiency which can be realized, are but a few of the reasons why law firms and in-house counsel are shifting operations abroad.

Some of the latest legal specialties and tasks that "...are susceptible to outsourcing": (or, in other words, Jobs Americans Won't Do - JAWD) are:

  • Litigation - Document reviews, compliance and research (legal and business information)
  • Corporate - drafting and revising, abstraction, due diligence, corporate governance and corporate secretary, credit analysis.
  • Patent - search, drafting, analysis, enforcement and monetization, and patent litigation.

To be honest, most of this work is not even done by full-fledged lawyers, but by law clerks, paralegals, legal secretaries, word processors, or (if given a chance) even just smart people off the street. Junior lawyers may be found doing this work as entry-level work assignments.

Is it even necessary for me to say that many Americans enjoy this type of work, and find it challenging and rewarding rather than mundane and routine? Or how about the fact that top-level lawyers start off by doing this kind of work, which can serve as a solid foundation for a successful career?

One of the speakers is David Perla, the Co-CEO of Mumbai-based Pangea3 LLC. The Careers section of their website indicates openings in India for contract lawyers, scientists, engineers, technologists, patent lawyers, legal researchers and litigation lawyers. Notice how the New York office only publishes openings for a Litigation Sales Lawyer and a Patent Lawyer. Notice also how the openings in India specify they want applicants who have between 2-10 years of experience or 1-7 years of experience. I'm not sure what 40-year old Indians are supposed to do with themselves after they've reached the upper limit on the experience chart.

Check out the Pangea3 blog section where Kevin Colangelo, on December 6, 2007, wrote about the presentation he gave at the Center for Economic Policy Studies’ (CEPS) Fall Symposium at Princeton University:

Simply stated, it’s clear to me that the intellectual debate over offshoring has become merely that: intellectual. Finally. Complex, thoughtful discussions on global economics are indeed valuable and necessary, but at the end of the day, a roomful of non-attorneys did not seem fazed by the notion of Pangea3’s Indian attorneys doing U.S. and U.K. legal work. Their questions were focused on the details of how we do the work, rather than whether it is good for the economy or how this will impact the distinguished U.S. and U.K. legal professions.

I’m hopeful that the insight demonstrated at this Symposium is further proof that offshoring, and in particular, the offshoring of legal services, has matured to the point where it is viewed as a key, but uncontroversial, element of our economy.

In other words, the offshoring geniuses don't have to justify sending our jobs overseas anymore. They are off the hook. Everyone does it now, and there's not a damn thing the peasants can do about it.

(Special thanks to a loyal reader for letting me know about Pangea3. Cross-posted to Carrie's Nation.)

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2 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Well, if we can get 'enough' of this type of work to go offshore, maybe the people who should notice -- ie, the politician/lawyers who might not be able to find real work after they leave office -- will notice..
Let's see what's left that _can't_ be sent offshore: policemen, teachers [Huh! Maybe if distance learning and network based instruction really takes off!], construction, loggers, agriculture, ...
Still a few!
1/16/08, 11:18 AM  
Blogger Citizen Carrie said...
Here's a link for the Agenda for this conference:

http://www.quislex.com/pdf/
India_LPO_Summit_Jan_2008.pdf
1/16/08, 5:54 PM  
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