Beyond the back office

As clients are demanding more for less, law firms may find LPO more relevant than the LBO in 2009. Slashing legal costs "was emerging as a trend even before the credit crunch; now it is an overriding imperative," declares Richard Susskind in a look at the "soaring" Indian legal process outsourcing (LPO) industry. For a while now, some law firms have been outsourcing back office (e.g., IT) functions. Increasingly, however, the outsourcing option becomes more attractive for certain ("routine or repetitive") legal work, such as research, doc review and due diligence.

This past week, as the auto industry bailout battle raged, many wondered why Big Three workers couldn't accept the same sort of package as their peers working at Toyota plants. LPO companies hire Indian legal graduates with starting salaries at about $7,000. Compare BigLaw's $160,000 base for first-years doing what often amounts to the same type of work. Is it too late to unionize?

Also, check out this video of a Kelley Drye partner explaining to an attentive student audience at Cardozo how many of their would-be future jobs are "ripe for outsourcing."

(Via the embittered second cousin of ATL, Tom the Temp.)

-posted by brian