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Part - VII

• Another factor that's greatly helping the success of Indians in legal outsourcing is cost-effectiveness. The fact that the legal profession is not much remunerative in India except for in the top level and the abundance of law graduates are helping India to emerge as the hub of outsourcing business in legal services.

The bottom line is that "the cost of doing business is extremely low and the caliber of the work product extremely high."

Outsourcing services to the legal profession are just beginning. Law firms around the United States are taking tentative steps toward outsourcing transcription, legal research, and limited litigation support & research and document management for trials to cut costs. The American Lawyer had reported recently that General Electric and other US firms are starting to use Indian lawyers to supplant some of the work formerly done by US law firms.

Many in the legal community believe it is a matter of time before sending legal work out of the country becomes a mainstream practice.

"Off shoring has become not just a trend, but an accepted part of business practice for many large businesses," said Leon Steinberg, chief executive of Intellevate, a legal-support firm that operates an office center in India that serves U.S. lawyers. "There is no question in my mind that it is going to happen. It already is. It is just, in my opinion, the matter of degree and how fast it takes off," he said.

However, there are no official figures to substantiate any claim as to how much legal business in terms of dollars is being sent into India. There are no surveys or government records that give this break up today. Any body's say is any body's guess. Service Providers function does not disclose their charges and income.

Three aspects that keep these developments incognito are: -

• Avoiding any hype to attract regulatory scrutiny;

• Confidentiality, secrecy and data protection arrangement between the overseas principals and Indian service providers; and

• The commercial impulse to be initial providers, before many jump in the fray.

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*Contributed by -
Shuchi Singla,
Global Business Operations, Semester-11,
Shri Ram College Of Commerce,
University Of Delhi.