LPO (legal process outsourcing) is a process wherein law firms channel out a chunk of their work to an external enterprise, primarily for saving costs. A difficult economic climate prompts the law firms to find different ways to curtail their expenses and outsourcing contributes substantially to this objective.
Here is more on legal process outsourcing:
Identifying Work to Outsource
Junior staff such as admin and paralegals brings less direct value to a firm. The routine work they do for the highly qualified and experienced lawyers can be easily shifted to an offshore outsourcing firm. The arrangement would ensure the same work is done at truncated costs.
Extensive Range of Processes
Outsourced tasks generally involve processes like document drafting, legal research, legal contracts, agreements, client letters, patent applications and a gamut of paralegal services. An LPO firm may also be tasked with reviewing, organizing and indexing legal documents; performing legal research, non-legal research and medical research; maintaining files; doing legal work involving investigations, outside vendors etc. and developing a computerized information retrieval system. Thanks to data explosion and technological evolution, LPO is in vogue today as it helps legal firms do away with time-consuming and expensive processes.
Document Drafting
Document drafting constitutes approximately 80% of the work in LPO. The objective of the process is to reduce a document set into a workable and responsive data set. LPO-related work generally includes preparing subpoenas and deposition notices; drafting discovery documents, stipulations, motions, deposition questions and outlines, briefs and legal propaganda; preparing interrogatories; and giving responses. The job also includes identification of documents for review by senior lawyers. Documents are searched and segregated for case relevance, confidentiality, privileged /protection and ‘key’ status.
Hiring a Service Provider
You need to zero in on a service provider with the right blend of customized technology, process consulting and legal services that can bring in greater business value for firm. Leading providers enable law firms and corporate legal departments to cut costs without cutting corners. They can be trusted for attaining operational excellence through the implementation of proven methodologies and frameworks.
Scalability of Processes
Scalability is a key attribute of a reliable LPO firm that demonstrates the ability of the organization to ramp its operations up or down as per client requirements in order to negotiate project peaks and troughs. Today, LPO firms have a global delivery model in place for integrating with clients through key drivers such as processes, tools, knowledge management, and risk mitigation.
End-To-End Legal Process Lifecycle Outsourcing
Collaborating with a company offering end-to-end legal process lifecycle outsourcing is most advantageous for a legal firm contemplating to send its operational processes out. Generally, LPOs start with the outsourcing of select support services and once trust is built, other legal processes are included. A risk mitigation framework must be developed to control risks. The collaborating firms also need to ensure that linguistic or cultural differences do not create problems.
To sustain success in a competitive legal world, you need to focus on what you do best and let offshore professionals handle the labor-intensive and deadline-driven litigation work. Determine which organization can provide you more strategic value out of the day-to-day work before signing the deal.
