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By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants The human psychology always guides one to allude towards bigger things before being attracted to smaller ones. Everybody tries to be instantaneous in unfurling the answers to the questions confront. If a person is placed in a position to save different currency notes from fire he would naturally try to save bigger currency notes before hand. By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants Significant quantity of Contract Management is still being managed by in-house attorneys resulting in compromising the focus of customer differentiation and value generating activities! 
Information Technology, E-Discovery Increase Needed Level of Competence
May 25, 2011 - Posted by KPO Consultants in Blog By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants Technology has changed the way we practice law. Searching databases support faster research, banks help us share the work product, and document management systems help to organize our cases. Many of these tools help us work more efficiently and with greater organization. Lawyers may choose to use these technologies as they see fit. However, in the field of electronic discovery, which is inherently tied to technology, not using available technology limits the ability of counsel to represent the interests of a client. In the era of electronic information, it is literally impossible to produce all relevant information without the use of some information technology. Therefore, the question arises whether some minimum technology standards apply to lawyers practicing in this area. Ethical Obligations ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct requires that lawyers provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, and thoroughness to prepare reasonably well for representation.
Nurturing the Seeds of Profits in the Fast-Growing LPO Industry
May 23, 2011 - Posted by KPO Consultants in Blog By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants In the wake of recession, the question about cost of legal services is under great scrutiny and legal process outsourcing (LPO) is seen as an efficient way to reduce costs and maintain profit margins in a challenging economy. However, outsourcing legal services is not as simple as it seems. It is extremely crucial to consider the legality of the matters. LPO services go beyond simple cost-cutting and focus more on the quality of services. You need to make sure that the provider you outsource to has appropriate precedents, the law is up-to-date and the provider has a thorough understanding of the law of the particular area or jurisdiction. Here are five things that you need to consider in order to reap profits from the LPO seeds you plant: Liability When you outsource legal processes to an external service provider, you should monitor the accuracy of any advice or suggestions they have concerning your legal endeavors. If they supply you with wrong or incompetent information, then your business stands to take a loss. Such situations could mean liability, i.e., court decisions about who is responsible for any losses. Thus it is important to ensure that your service provider is ready to take on the liability or ownership for the results incurred by their services.
By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants This post concentrate on a few important considerations that usually weigh with the foreign law firm/corporation while short-listing vendors for the purpose of off-shoring legal work.
These are being specifically discussed here because different start- up companies more often than not seeks advice on these matters. As an Indian LPO it is extremely important that you impress the foreign law firm about the fact that your small little management team does have adequate experience about setting up, operating and smoothly making go an off-shoring business. In case you can show that one of your managers has extensive experience of operating an offshore business in either the U.S. or UK, it shall build high confidence in the prospective customer. This and a little more, you need to establish in no uncertain terms that your management is also alive to the “off-shoring weather” as it prevails in India.
Addressing LPO Security Concerns for the Secretive Legal Community
May 16, 2011 - Posted by KPO Consultants in Blog By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants
A major concern for law firms in determining whether to take the business leap into legal process outsourcing (LPO) is privacy, according to Stefan BeLinfanti of www.articleage.com. Secrecy is so entrenched in the legal culture, and is an essential aspect of legal ethics, that the very idea of an unknown pair of eyes seeing data sent across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans sends shivers up the spines of most top-shelf lawyers. Outsourcing companies must squelch those concerns. Establishing and maintaining relationships with existing and prospective customers is the lifeblood of LPO providers. As outsourcing becomes more widespread and competition in the market grows, powerful protection against information leaks is one of the important factors in choosing a provider. However, because legal documentation is sometimes not sensitive information, protection sensitivity should change with the defining characteristics of the litigation and practice at hand. Despite their secretive nature, law firms should learn that they are no different from other companies that do not like to publicize their business practices. By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants The recent withdrawal of Boies, Schiller & Flexner from the Adelphia bankruptcy case for alleged disclosure and conflict issues with respect to a document-management company stresses the need in the profession for clear guidance in dealing with outside suppliers’ electronic discovery and nonlegal services. Even the appearance of possible ethical issues related to the provision of e-discovery services, in particular with regard to the sudden emergence of third-party, “industry” nonlegal providers can become a factor in the lawsuit, or worse. Unresolved ethical issues in this area can become traps for the unwary, which could result in extreme penalties, denial of rights, restoration of rights, disciplinary action and damage to professional reputation. Ethical issues related to nonlegal services in litigation are not new. The American Bar Association, through its Model Rules of Professional Conduct and Code of Professional Responsibility predecessor, has long sought to regulate the problems that may arise, if legal services are not provided by the client, outside counsel or a third party. But e-discovery is not a simple photocopy. Given the high risks of cost, complexity and proximity to the center of the litigation process, the so-called e-discovery brings, at least, the need for a new kind of attention to the details of best ethical practices.
Is the Lack of an Indian Regulatory Framework Hurting the LPO Industry?
May 12, 2011 - Posted by KPO Consultants in Blog By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants
Any discussion about Legal Process Outsourcing sector brings the question of the consequences of the absence of a regulatory mechanism in India and the possibilities of tackling the problems. While there is no regulation as such in India regarding the LPO industry, certain steps have been taken by the industry themselves like the formation of the Global Legal Professional Certification Test. This test was devised in April, 2007 by the recruitment and training firm Rainmaker that focuses on the LPO industry in collaboration with three other LPO firms namely, JuryMaterix, Bodhi Global and Quislex. This test aims at testing candidates on skills needed in LPO: English fluency, technology and professional skills, personal effectiveness and legal knowledge.
While this test may be the step in the right direction, and was devised by reputable companies, it is still a private initiative which neither has recognition from all LPO firms in the country, nor does it have legal recognition in the global market. This step would be more effective if it were done in collaboration with the Bar Associations of the various countries that outsource their legal work to countries like India.
Despite the impediments one cannot say that there would be extinction of the LPO industry if there was no regulatory mechanism. With the implementation of regulatory mechanisms, the challenges that have been discussed over and over can be tackled in a more efficient way. The LPO industry gets its impetus from the lack of abundance of talented legal minds in the countries which outsource their legal work. An interview with the researchers at Ntrust Infotech Pvt. Ltd., a firm that is involved in lease administration back office activities, states "Regulatory mechanism is a necessity because LPO will be driven mostly by knowledge arbitrage rather than a pure economic cost arbitrage. There is huge potential for the industry. In order to protect the interest of the entire industry the mechanism needs to ensure that only serious, long-term players are involved in this and prevent short-term opportunists who bring disrepute to the industry and thereby spoil our opportunity to exploit the huge potential."
By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants
This post has very little to do directly with the legal process outsourcing industry in India (LPO) and probably belongs in a different blog. I guess the closest I could come to justify its placement here is that in Bangalore a company called Duron, www.duronenergy.com, which is providing solar home lighting to rural India, can be said to provide the world with a different outsourcing model. When one has the opportunity to discuss such unique and possibly profound work, sharing the story may stimulate others to think outside the box and come up with unique ideas of their own, whether it relates to LPO or other big issues confronting us over this century.
Duron Energy, an Idealab company, has Dr. Sridhar Mitta, the original Chief Technology Officer of Wipro as one of its earliest employees, and, as President of Wipro Global R&D, the key missionary of outsourced product development. He is the founder and managing director of NextWealth, www.nextwealth.in. After receiving two master’s, one in India and the other at Oklahoma State University, he returned to India and spent several years in the public sector before joining Wipro in its startup days. He retired in 2001 and subsequently has been involved in a number of technology companies. His career truly traces the development of the IT industry in India. But his primary focus now is NextWealth, which may represent another step along the IT path in India and possibly elsewhere.
ABA Offers Some Guidance on Ethical, Professional Issues Raised by LPO
May 08, 2011 - Posted by KPO Consultants in Blog By Steve Homan, Consultant, KPO Consultants and Rahul Jain, Vice President, KPO Consultants
The five major ethical/professional conduct issues raised by the legal process outsourcing (LPO) industry are that it: (1) is unauthorized practice of law by nonlawyers; (2) is a conflict of interest; (3) breaks client confidentiality; (4) breaks client disclosure and consent; and (5) raises billing issues related to outsourcing. The issues are raised by the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the Formal Opinions issued by the ABA Committee on related subjects, and the recent opinion on LPO issued by the NYC Bar. As is discussed below, the American Bar Association (ABA) has addressed the issue of outsourcing in the context of domestic contract attorneys. The ABA recommendations on that subject provide the most useful available starting point for analyzing the ethical implications of LPO. The only major differences between using a contract attorney in the United States and LPO is that, with LPO, the attorney or paralegal lives in another country and is not licensed to practice law. Otherwise, the two services share many common characteristics. |
Sundeep Srivastava, Director, Pristine councilors Pvt. Ltd., India
Vinch Neicho, Litigation Support Manager, Allen & Overy LLP, U.K
James Ngugi, Managing partner, Musyoka Annan & Co, Kenya
Maria Round, Head of Ethics-Guidance Solicitors Regulation Authority, U.K
Kirby Twitchen, Allen & Overy, U.K