Blackbook of Outsourcing: 2008 Perception Study results (LPO)

2008 TOP TEN LEGAL PROCESS OUTSOURCING (LPO)
1 Clutch Group
2 CPA Global
3 Integreon
4 Law-Scribe
5 Mindcrest
6 QuisLex
7 SDD Global
8 Cobra Legal Solutions
9 Bodhi Global
10 iDiligence

Source: http://theblackbookofoutsourcing.com/vendors-lpo-2008.htm

Press Release: Brown-Wilson Group's 2008 LPO vendor survey

Brown-Wilson Group's 2008 LPO vendor survey ranks CPA number one in Contract & Legal Document Review, Innovation, Trust, Reliability and Brand Image
London, 25 June 2008—CPA, the leading provider of outsourced legal support services and the world's top intellectual property (IP) management specialist, announced today that it has been awarded the top ranking in the "Contract & Legal Document Review" category and the number two overall position in the 2008 Black Book of Outsourcing’s Top Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) Vendors survey.

The Black Book survey, produced by the Brown-Wilson Group, Inc, ranks providers of outsourced sales processes and services. Over 80 LPOs worldwide competed for Top Ten honours in 2008.

"Our survey results demonstrate that CPA has clearly impressed clients with its high level of innovation, trust, and reliability," said Doug Brown, managing partner of Brown Wilson Group and co-author of The Black Book of Outsourcing (Wiley Publishers). "Law firms and corporate legal departments look closely at these critical areas when choosing which legal process outsourcing providers with whom to partner."

The Black Book survey also lays out the increasingly compelling case for LPO. "The principal benefits to the legal sector of any form of outsourcing remain increased levels of service, freeing management time, access to expertise, and cost reductions," the survey concludes.

In addition to its overall number two ranking and its number one ranking in the contract and legal document review category, CPA ranked first in the following individual categories:

• Innovation: Vendor technology helps clients compete more effectively and generate larger revenues/profits.
• Training: Leadership provides significant and meaningful training opportunities for employees and clients.
• Trust: Trust in vendor’s enterprise reputation to effectively deliver ideal business results
• Reliability: Online reliability is maximized and downtimes are minimized
• Brand Image: Maintains high image and reputation so that customer law firms, corporations and other buyers of LPO services openly reference their LPO as a team member
• Marginal Value Adds: Provides true business transformation opportunities to the buyer

Commented Chris Veator, CPA’s Executive Vice President of Legal Services: "CPA’s high rating by Black Book as one of the world’s top LPO consultants is a clear acknowledgement of the superior service we offer our clients and the rapidly growing strength of our outsourcing offering. To be recognized by our clients is the true test of our quality and the value of our services. "

Veator continued: "At a time when the global economy is entering uncharted territory, more companies are aggressively seeking innovative ways to increase their capacity while reducing the cost of doing business; outsourcing is a cutting edge solution to these challenges. For CPA to be ranked as number one in the categories of Trust, Innovation, and Training affirms our commitment and investments in being the LPO provider of choice. The rankings illustrate that CPA is the right choice for companies looking to outsource elements of their legal operations to third-party providers."

The Black Book of Outsourcing is the foremost ranking authority and most extensive perception study on outsourcing firms. Outsourcing firms are ranked by a rigorous three-step process to ensure candid and thorough performance data. Overall, CPA was ranked second out of more than 80 firms worldwide and is considered a top-tier vendor in the LPO industry.

About CPA: With clients in over 100 countries, CPA is a leading provider of outsourced legal support services and the world's top intellectual property (IP) management specialist. Founded in 1969, CPA Global provides lifecycle management services for intellectual property such as patent, design and trademark searching, watching, renewals, and portfolio strategy. CPA is also a leader in the growing market for outsourced contract management and litigation support services, helping law firms and corporations to realize value by managing risk, cost and capacity. CPA employs over 1,100 people in 16 offices in 8 countries. For further information visit: www.cpaglobal.com/legal_services

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Media Contacts

Rob Stichbury, Business Development Director 01784 495751 rstichbury@cpaglobal.com

James Clasper, Brunswick Group, 020 7404 5959 jclasper@brunswickgroup.com

CNBC TO COVER LEGAL OUTSOURCING

This weekend, CNBC-TV 18, the leader in India business news, will be covering legal outsourcing. In its new program, Up South, the television network will examine the rise of SDD Global Solutions in Mysore, as well as two other companies in this upcoming city that Infosys chose for its largest facility. The program will report on how and why SDD Global also chose Mysore as the headquarters for its operations, which include offices in New York, London, and Bangalore. SDD Global is reporting a resurgence in its fortunes, with a doubling of client work and an influx of new recruits. This came after emerging successfully from what company sources say was a “flattering but unwelcome” take-over attempt by a large investor. SDD Global’s latest high-profile client is Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of Harrod’s in London and the Hotel Ritz in Paris. Indian attorneys in Mysore have been busy working on legal and factual issues relating to the alleged assassination of Princess Diana and Mr. Al Fayed’s son, Dodi. Whoever said legal work is boring doesn’t know where to work! CNBC’s report on SDD Global, which will be available worldwide, will air in India on Saturday at 11:30am, and again on Sunday at 7pm.

LPO Summit Sep 2008

I provided initial consultation for ACI's LPO Summit to be held in New York on Sep 15-16, 2008. The final agenda has come out very well, and there is promise from ACI that unlike several me-too LPO conferences being organised of late, LPO vendor population will be kept to only the best and the brightest.

A list of sessions and brief contents are as follows:
Pre-conference Workshop
Getting to Grips with Outsourcing your Legal Services Offshore: The A-Z of Negotiating, Enacting and Managing Outsourcing Relationships
Evaluating the type of work that can or should be outsourced
- Support practices versus front office/client facing services
• Examining the current sourcing methods and models used for legal outsourcing
- Onshore – captive
- Onshore –outsourcing
- Offshore – own captive
- Offshore - outsource
• Enacting an outsourcing initiative
- Sourcing and selecting a provider/partner
- Negotiating an outsourcing agreement that complies with your obligations for privacy and client confidentiality
- Change management - achieving firm-wide buy in and a cohesive outsourcing strategy
• Establishing benchmarks and metrics to measure success or failure

The State of the LPO Market: Current Trends, Viability and Adoption Rates
• Identifying the primary drivers behind legal outsourcing for:
- In-house counsel
- Law firms
• Examining recent trends in the type of services being outsourced
- Practice or administrative support functions
- Legal processes
- Specialized legal services
• Quantifying the value proposition of legal outsourcing
- Projected cost savings
- Improved resource allocation
- Revenue growth
- Increased competitive advantage
• Evaluating the scope and length of outsourcing projects – does this equate to increased confidence in legal process outsourcing?

LPO Business Models: Determining which Makes Most Sense for your Business Needs and Goals
• Examining the associated costs, cost savings and tax advantages for:
- Domestic captive
- Offshore captive
- Third party LPO service providers
• Considerations when leveraging a global labor pool
- Hiring and managing remote workers
- Controlling process, quality and training
• What are the typical transition processes and timelines?
• Evaluating the viability of a domestic captive center versus an offshore center
- Lower costs available in the mid-west
- Time zone advantage
- Opportunity to employ local resources
• Determining whether India is an offshore location for your business goals
- Cost analysis
- The availability of a qualified labor pool
- The rate of attrition
• What other offshore locations are being utilized or should be considered?

Case Studies: Why In-House Counsel Have, or Have Not, Bought into LPO

Determining the Hallmarks of a Successful Outsourcing Initiative - Selecting Services to Outsource
• Identifying the characteristics of services that have been outsourced thus far:
- High demand
- Scalable
- Lower risk
• Evaluating the type of work that is most susceptible to outsourcing
- Corporate
- Intellectual property and patent litigation
- Litigation and e-discovery
- Research
- Database technology
• Where have the greatest efficiencies and cost savings been realized?
• Determining what services to outsource first, and how to know when you’re ready to expand that scope
- Practice support services versus legal processes

Papering the Transaction - Best Practices for Structuring and Negotiating your Outsourcing Agreement
• Structuring confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements to ensure your obligations for client confidentiality and privacy are met
• Beyond the master agreement – establishing service-level benchmarks
- What type of service level agreements are appropriate?
- What current benchmarks or provisions are being used in the market?
- Establishing penalties for breach
- Highlighting specific examples of service level agreements
• Defining IP rights
- What is the industry standard?
- How to tweak for specific circumstances
• Audit rights – what should the contract demand or allow for?
• Drafting provisions that will ensure knowledge transfer and a timeframe for phasing it in
• Leveraging U.S.-India tax agreements when constructing your outsourcing contract
• What to do if a security breach occurs
- When to notify clients
- Restoring client confidence
- Determining who bears fault – and steps to take thereafter
• Thinking ahead – incorporating wind down provisions
- What happens when terminating the relationship –what is the process?
- Different termination scenarios

Questions to Ask and Key Expectations to Establish Before Selecting a LPO Service Provider
• When establishing an LPO relationship, buyers tend to focus on the answers to three key questions:
- How much will it cost?
- How well will the provider be able to deliver?
- What’s it going to be like to work with them?

Achieving Firm Wide Buy-In: Incorporating Change Management to Successfully Develop and Execute Your Legal Outsourcing Strategy
• Communicating the advantages of building offshore resources as a means to achieve overall resource allocation efficiency
• Securing appropriate management buy-in to aid in the successful adoption of legal outsourcing
• Overcoming employee feelings around a loss of control – strategies for getting users to adapt and embrace new ways of working
• Instilling acceptance of change within your in-house counsel or firm to overcome resistance to legal outsourcing

Ethical Considerations when Outsourcing Legal Services
• Examining the ethical issues regarding outsourcing legal work to India
- Unauthorized practice of law
- Duty to supervise
- Attorney-client privilege
- Confidentiality
- Client conflicts of interest
- Data and personnel security
- Export control compliance (patent specific)
- Document retention
- Billing issues for private practitioners
• State Bar Association issued opinions regarding the outsourcing of legal services and the unauthorized practice of law
• Liability questions with respect to malpractice coverage

Preserving Quality of Service and Work Product in LPO
• Developing a risk allocation framework to control or mitigate the risks surrounding LPO
• Controlling offshore operations remotely – incorporating strategies to overcome quality control challenges:
- Cultural differences
- Linguistic issues
- Training
• Best practices for handling day-to-day operations
- Instituting and maintaining proper communication channels for daily administration and quality controls
- Resolving problems and extreme situations while avoiding business disruption
- Tried and tested methods and metrics to evaluate and monitor quality, and to ensure accountability
• Establishing conflict resolution procedures
- What you need to know about utilizing commercial dispute resolutions overseas to enforce commercial rights and litigation
• Business continuity planning and disaster recovery to protect customer and company information in your partner’s hands

Avoiding the Potential Pitfalls in Litigation where Work has been Outsourced

Preventing Service Performance Issues Caused by Third Party Provider Employees
• Examining potential vendor personnel problems which could negatively impact outsourced services
- Unqualified hires
- Attrition
- Poor performance
- Lack of motivation
• Incorporating service performance into your outsourcing agreement to prevent vendor personnel issues
- Requisite skill covenants
- Skill set requirements
- Screening requirements
- Anti-turnover provisions
- Incentive bonuses
- Removal rights
- Security levels
- Indemnification requirements
• Incentivizing vendors to select and maintain an appropriate workforce to satisfy your organization’s goals in outsourced services
- Implementing discretionary work as a way to offer career development and prevent attrition

Infrastructure and Technology Requirements for Successful Legal Outsourcing
• Practical explanations and advice on the types of solutions and technology being used within legal outsourcing
• Examining the basic mechanics of linking two organizations that can be half way around the world
- WAN/LAN (Wide Area Network/Local Area Network)
- VPN (Virtual Private Network)
• Security measures for protecting confidential information
• Training staff on the technology platform to be used to send and receive work

CLE credits from the bars of New York and California area available.