Legal Research

Big Changes in Legal Outsourcing

By Simon Chester

I know this is Gavin’s beat, but the press this week has had a lot of activity in the outsourcing arena.

First news is Microsoft’s announcement today that it’s following Rio Tinto’s lead and route a fair amount of routine legal work to Gurgaon. Microsoft has been outsourcing basic intellectual property and patent maintenance to CPA Global since the mid-Noughties with around 70 CPA staff. However, this is a separate new arrangement for general legal work.

Second development goes in the other direction. CPA is inspecting sites in Northern England for its own outsourcing centre to take on 10-20 lawyers and paralegals for low-level legal tasks. The talk is for expansion to several hundred legal personnel.

Next to Delhi for a report in last week’s Hindu that predicts that India?s business processing outsourcing market (including exports) made $71.6 billion in 2009 and could touch $285 billion in 2020 growing at a compounded growth rate of 15 per cent, according to a report by KPMG and ASOCIO (Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation).

Down in Bangalore they’re targeting Europe for more outsourcing business, again reports the Hindu. The challenges will be privacy and regulatory.

The American Ambassador to India expressed concerns yesterday about economic distortions and tax-driven investment in outsourcing. The headline is U.S. wants Indian firms to create jobs in America, which didn’t quite line up with what he said, but outbound Indian investment is burgeoning.

Finally, having listened to Leah Cooper (aka Super-Cooper) at the Law Society’s useful video replays of its Legal Breakfast programme in mid-January, I was suprised to see the announcement that legal services outsourcing provider CPA Global has appointed Leah Cooper, former Managing Attorney at Rio Tinto, to its executive team to be responsible for leading the strategy and development of CPA Global’s legal services outsourcing solutions for the company’s growing portfolio of clients. This is a significant appointment since she has significant credibility in the field.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on February 18, 2010 (boomark / email).