India Business Law Journal LPO Article by David Chamberlin: "Staying Ahead" (November 2014) ...
1
Intelligence report India Business Law Journal 54 Legal process outsourcing November 2014 audit trail and tracking mechanism to satisfy regula- tors and regulatory audit requirements,” says Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Mindcrest. A further achievement is the signing of six multi-year agreements with Fortune 100 services and healthcare companies over the past 12 months. All will benefit from what Natarajan describes as their “best-shore delivery model”, which is “geared to using the best resources with The legal market is undergoing structural change. As a result the corporate consumer of legal services increas- ingly expects the unbundling of commercial legal serv- ices and the use of alternative legal service models. Yet while the range of legal work that is being taken on by providers of alternative legal service grows, law firms are increasingly internalizing alternative service models. A survey of senior in-house lawyers carried out earlier this year by Legal Week, a leading UK legal publication, found that 23% of those surveyed would “probably not” pick a firm without a low-cost centre. Compare this to 10 years ago, when legal process outsourcing (LPO) was virtually unknown. This paradigm shift has the synergistic effect of pres- suring Indian LPO providers to adapt and creating busi- ness opportunities for those that do. Smart moves By standing out among a crowded field of suppli- ers, leading Indian LPOs can capture market share and attract fresh buyers now turning to LPO as an option. To help capitalize on the opportunities available, however, market forces indicate that Indian LPOs should look to integrate with law firms to address the increasing demand for “one-stop shops” from those not wanting to deal with a collage of vendors. Indian LPOs also need to be able to take advantage of the explosive rise of new legal technologies. Law firms are reforming in several key areas. A sig- nificant number of the large firms have created, or are creating, their own low-cost centres of excellence to support client-facing services. Then there is a crop of what are called “NewLaw” structures that have arisen from the ground up to combine traditional law firm advi- sory services with LPO-like efficiencies. For traditional law firms that do not wish to build their own low-cost centres, partnering with established LPOs to create hybrid delivery models is a powerful third option. And there are excellent reasons for partnering rather than building. Partnering does not require the same up-front investment in infrastructure or expertise and provides commercial benefits significantly quicker without a steep learning curve. Hybrid models are integrated, long-term relationships – instead of project-by-project or ad hoc working arrange- ments – between law firms and LPO providers. This superstructure enables law firms to market a new value proposition to their existing client base (as opposed to merely reacting), offer new service lines (e.g. in contract management), and even target new client types (e.g. by acquiring the operating efficiency to land middle-market M&A deals previously deemed uneconomical). Indian LPOs have a history of such service relationships with corporate law departments, and so are well positioned to transplant that experience to law firms. Indian LPOs are further well-placed to relieve the pres- sure placed on corporate law departments. Research indicates companies will increasingly demand managed legal services (or “co-sourcing” arrangements), through which the in-house legal team outsources functional areas (e.g. administering to a class of contracts) to an external provider or a collection of providers. Experienced LPOs are experts in implementing, and overseeing, such service offerings across most major industries, and so India should benefit from this trend. Importantly, there is an emerging synthesis between hybrid offerings and the corporate appetite for man- aged legal services, whereby law firms are using hybrid relationships with LPOs to provide a new level of sophis- tication in managed services that incorporates bespoke advisory support. The technology challenge Legal technology is consuming work that was tradi- tionally performed by lawyers. LPOs that fail to keep pace could have their market share attacked by such advances. For example, in the document review context, the use of data analytics and machine learning has dras- tically reduced the number of documents that require review. In the area of transactions, companies are automating the identification and extraction of contract clauses relevant to deal due diligence. In the contract management arena, technology vendors are automating how contracts are discovered and drafted. But success- ful LPOs, including select Indian LPOs, are adapting and becoming experts in the use of this new technology, turning this new market variable into an advantage. Staying ahead As competition in the legal services market heats up, can India’s legal process outsourcers stand out? David Chamberlin believes they can David Chamberlin is the head of legal services and the general coun- sel, Europe, at Cognia Law, a legal process outsourcing company with offshore legal support teams in South Africa and the EU.
-
Upload
david-chamberlin -
Category
Law
-
view
49 -
download
0
Transcript of India Business Law Journal LPO Article by David Chamberlin: "Staying Ahead" (November 2014) ...
Intelligence report
India Business Law Journal54
Legal process outsourcing
November 2014
audit trail and tracking mechanism to satisfy regula-tors and regulatory audit requirements,” says Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Mindcrest.
A further achievement is the signing of six multi-year
agreements with Fortune 100 services and healthcare companies over the past 12 months. All will benefit from what Natarajan describes as their “best-shore delivery model”, which is “geared to using the best resources with
The legal market is undergoing structural change. As a result the corporate consumer of legal services increas-ingly expects the unbundling of commercial legal serv-ices and the use of alternative legal service models. Yet while the range of legal work that is being taken on by providers of alternative legal service grows, law firms are increasingly internalizing alternative service models.
A survey of senior in-house lawyers carried out earlier this year by Legal Week, a leading UK legal publication, found that 23% of those surveyed would “probably not” pick a firm without a low-cost centre. Compare this to 10 years ago, when legal process outsourcing (LPO) was virtually unknown.
This paradigm shift has the synergistic effect of pres-suring Indian LPO providers to adapt and creating busi-ness opportunities for those that do.
Smart moves
By standing out among a crowded field of suppli-ers, leading Indian LPOs can capture market share and attract fresh buyers now turning to LPO as an option. To help capitalize on the opportunities available, however, market forces indicate that Indian LPOs should look to integrate with law firms to address the increasing demand for “one-stop shops” from those not wanting to deal with a collage of vendors. Indian LPOs also need to be able to take advantage of the explosive rise of new legal technologies.
Law firms are reforming in several key areas. A sig-nificant number of the large firms have created, or are creating, their own low-cost centres of excellence to support client-facing services. Then there is a crop of what are called “NewLaw” structures that have arisen from the ground up to combine traditional law firm advi-sory services with LPO-like efficiencies.
For traditional law firms that do not wish to build their own low-cost centres, partnering with established LPOs to create hybrid delivery models is a powerful third option. And there are excellent reasons for partnering rather than building. Partnering does not require the same up-front investment in infrastructure or expertise and provides commercial benefits significantly quicker without a steep learning curve.
Hybrid models are integrated, long-term relationships – instead of project-by-project or ad hoc working arrange-ments – between law firms and LPO providers. This
superstructure enables law firms to market a new value proposition to their existing client base (as opposed to merely reacting), offer new service lines (e.g. in contract management), and even target new client types (e.g. by acquiring the operating efficiency to land middle-market M&A deals previously deemed uneconomical). Indian LPOs have a history of such service relationships with corporate law departments, and so are well positioned to transplant that experience to law firms.
Indian LPOs are further well-placed to relieve the pres-sure placed on corporate law departments. Research indicates companies will increasingly demand managed legal services (or “co-sourcing” arrangements), through which the in-house legal team outsources functional areas (e.g. administering to a class of contracts) to an external provider or a collection of providers.
Experienced LPOs are experts in implementing, and overseeing, such service offerings across most major industries, and so India should benefit from this trend. Importantly, there is an emerging synthesis between hybrid offerings and the corporate appetite for man-aged legal services, whereby law firms are using hybrid relationships with LPOs to provide a new level of sophis-tication in managed services that incorporates bespoke advisory support.
The technology challenge
Legal technology is consuming work that was tradi-tionally performed by lawyers. LPOs that fail to keep pace could have their market share attacked by such advances. For example, in the document review context, the use of data analytics and machine learning has dras-tically reduced the number of documents that require review. In the area of transactions, companies are automating the identification and extraction of contract clauses relevant to deal due diligence. In the contract management arena, technology vendors are automating how contracts are discovered and drafted. But success-ful LPOs, including select Indian LPOs, are adapting and becoming experts in the use of this new technology, turning this new market variable into an advantage.
Staying aheadAs competition in the legal services market heats up, can India’s
legal process outsourcers stand out?
David Chamberlin believes they can
David Chamberlin is the head of legal services and the general coun-sel, Europe, at Cognia Law, a legal process outsourcing company with offshore legal support teams in South Africa and the EU.
