Legal outsourcing to India a reality: Report

New York, Jan 28: Having questioned quality quotient of legal jobs outsourced from India for long, the American law society is now accepting it as a "reality" with even Fortune 500 firms opening up to the idea.

The New York Law Journal, one of the highly reputed and most read publications among American lawyers, said in an article in its latest issue that "outsourcing legal work to India is no longer a novelty. It's a reality." While noting that Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) to India was growing and resistance level in the country was gradually going down, the journal said that a significant cost-advantage was working strongly in favour of the trend and a "growing number of firms are angling for a piece of the action."

According to the report, the positive feedback given by the companies having outsourced their work in the past is leading to many other firms getting receptive to the idea, which includes some of the 10 largest law companies in the Fortune 500 list.

"LPO salaries for Indian lawyers are generally well below 10,000 USD a year. By comparison, a US contract lawyer usually earns around 30 USD an hour while associate base salaries at major firms in New York start at 160,000 USD a year," said the New York Law Journal (NYLJ) in its January edition.

The report noted that Pangea3, one of the largest Indian LPO firms, has garnered investment worth about 12 million dollars within three years of its incorporation.

Sources