British firms embracing Legal Outsourcing

Update: Mark Ross has an excellent post on the potential fall-outs of passing of the Legal Services Bill in the UK.

In probably one of the few pieces focussed on British firms and their LPO interests, this law.com article quotes the pioneering example of Clifford Chance in embracing LPO. The firm expects to save £30 million ($60 million) during the next three years by getting what may be considered quite manual (versus knowledge intensive) work out of India (they have a relationship with Integreon).

One of the partners at another large firm is acknowleged as saying that work such as document management, work that lends itself to economies of scale, is the one that firms consider first when they consider outsourcing. That the partner's own firm isn't outsourcing is a different thing.

The other LPO with greater focus on Document Processing related outsourcing from law firms, Chennai based OfficeTiger, is also reported to be working for another British firm.

Other large firms are also being mentioned in the article making it worth a read (may require subscription).

For a great example of a UK solicitor advocating outsourcing of atleast that portion of legal work that is considered grunt or mind-numbing my most associates and paralegal in US/UK, see this piece authored by Mark Ross of LawScribe.