| FORTUNE
500 FIRMS DRIVING LPO INDUSTRY
Source: Business Standard
August 9, 2007
Fortune 500 firms, a US based software firm
promoted by a person of Indian origin with a development
centre in Bangalore and a legal training firm
based out of Mumbai are driving legal process
outsourcing (LPO) to India.
LPO encompasses contract drafting and review,
litigation support, intellectual property, and
legal research and drafting
Sony Pictures had to prepare an ‘opinion
letter’ (outlining the activity and the
risks involved) for insurance firms in order to
secure cover for shooting a movie, and the movie’s
fate hinged on the letter and the cover.
Preparing the letter was a 400-man hour job which
would have cost $250,000 to get done in the US
and Sony gave it a second thought. Eventually,
the job was done in India for $43,000.
In India, lawyers are paid $30-90 per hour whereas
the cost in the US is $300 an hour. The English
speaking countries account for $185 billion of
the $250 billion global legal industry. Indians
who are familiar with both the English language
and the Anglo-Saxon legal system are equipped
to grab a share of this business.
“The $145-million LPO business is just
about a fraction of the potential,” said
Abhi Shah, CEO of JuriMatrix, a global legal solutions
company. India churns out about 79,000 English-speaking
lawyers and even if a fraction of them have usable
skills then the number becomes large. The present
addressable market is $3-4 billion, according
to Nasscom estimates, said Shah.
In comes Stratify, which has developed proprietary
software, eDiscovery, which has automated document
search and collection and tracks production of
legal documents, a soft of product lifestyle management
for law firms.
“LPO is an example of a highly-specialised
job being outsourced to India,” says Ritvik
Lukose, vice-president — marketing and operations,
Rainmaker, a training school for orienting lawyers
for an LPO job.
The jobs being outsourced include litigation
support, intellectual property, and legal research
and drafting, he added.
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