subject: Legal Process Outsourcing: It Has Arrived [print this page] Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is the newest kid on the ITes (IT-enabled services) block and it has already notched up impressive statistics. The players are scattered all around the globe-the service providers are mainly based in countries like India, the Philippines, Israel, and those in Latin America and the service-seekers are primarily the developed nations of the world.
This industry grew out of the need of law firms or corporations to obtain legal support services from another legal firm or a company that specializes in providing these services. The services typically offered by a LPO firm are reviewing legal documents, carrying out legal research work, compiling research and analysis documents, providing patents-related services, and drafting pleading documents and legal briefs.
The LPO industry is still in its nascent stages but the profits it has garnered are phenomenal. As per data that was available on April 2010, more than 5,000 professionals were working in this field in India and Philippines and they rake up annual revenues of USD 300 million. The workforce is expected to increase to 18,000 by the year 2015 and they will contribute USD 960 million to the coffers.
The success of the LPO firms stems from the fact that they charge a fraction of what an attorney in an industrialized nation will charge for doing the documentation work. Thus law firms often outsource the work.
An interesting trend has been noticed in this arena: more and more firms are demanding confidential services. For this reason, LPO firms have mushroomed to provide specialized "back-door" and "near-shore" services.
The LPO industry is here to stay and looks all set to flourish; a belief that has been substantiated when it admirably withstood the ravages of global recession. In fact, global recession opened the floodgates for large number of litigation and bankruptcy cases. The LPO firms were only too happy to lap them up.
