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Part - I
Outsourcing is contracting out a company's non-core, non-revenue producing activities to specialists. Now the big shift has been to outsource intellectually based service activities like research, product development, logistics, human relations, accounting, legal work, marketing, logistics, market research.
Offshore outsourcing has trickled down to the legal profession as well, not the complex agreements but more fundamental labor. Outsourcing lifts the burden so that the firm can focus on the aspects that provide maximum value to its clients such as strategy, negotiations, fact development, drafting, depositions and court appearances. Outsourcing legal work, ranging from legal research to proofreading to organizing and indexing documents for trial has emerged as a hot issue in the legal community.
Legal Outsourcing: What is it?
The past couple of years have seen a paradigm shift towards digital dictation by law firms which allows them to electronically distribute dictated documents to centralized document production facilities, enabling more efficient processing of documents in electronic files, rather than physical audio tapes. This has led some firms to consider where their costly document production facilities should be located and whether they should be outsourced. While outsourcing services to the legal profession are just beginning, various law firms in U.K and U.S.A are already outsourcing some document preparation, document management, limited litigation support and research. In most cases, Indian lawyers or paralegals do the work. It is seen that many Indians formally qualified or trained in US and UK law and with good work experience are fast shifting profession from active legal practice to dealing with the outsourced legal work.
Type of legal work outsourced includes: -
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* Contributed by -
Maushami Dasgupta,
LLB, Campus Law Centre, Delhi University.
Currently working as Senior Exec.-Legal with a subsidiary of Escorts Finance Ltd.
www.indialegal.net
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