Susskind writes about Rio Tinto and CPA Global deal

Richard Susskind, the author of The End of Lawyers? and Visiting Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, commented on the recent path breaking deal between Rio Tinto and CPA Global.

He said “it is evidence of a profound change in the legal world. In-house lawyers are under great pressure to reduce their head count and to spend less on external law firms, but, at the same time, their workload is increasing.

Clients, in short, need their advisers to provide more-for-less. One way to meet this challenge is for external lawyers to charge less. Most firms are indeed cutting their hourly rates and offering fixed fee arrangements; while many clients are driving down fees through e-auctioning and other devices. For now, it is a buyer’s market.”

This deal has been perceived in the legal market as one of the ground-breaking move that might change the way legal offshoring industry is perceived in the European market.