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Part - II

Many paralegals are joining a growing trend, working independently or freelancing. Freelance paralegals provide support on and 'as needed' basis, helping attorneys meet deadlines on special reports. An independent paralegal can help fill in the gaps in the legal services. The use of an experienced contract paralegal can bring better services to the client and decrease workload, all the while providing the attorney a higher profit margin. The attorney remains competitive and can serve more clients.

More and more global law firms are opting for BPO for the following reasons: -

• Relevant examples from other industries which have been successfully implementing outsourcing for the past two decades.

• The availability of outsourcers that offer economies of scale, expertise and scalability of resources that enable an organization to accomplish objectives that were too expensive to perform internally.

• The emergence of the outsourcing model as a business transformation tool through business process outsourcing (BPO), based on the outsourcer's IT resources and domain expertise.

Benefits Of Outsourcing

• Among the most significant costs of any law practice is legal research - in terms of cost of research material and cost of professional research time and salaries. The burden and expense of employing research clerks and lawyers is extremely high and particularly difficult for small and medium sized firms to carry, because legal research needs are unpredictable, ebbing and flowing with equally unpredictable caseload demands. Outsourcing enables the law firm to have an access to the researcher on an 'as-needed' basis. Thus, it reduces firm's overhead and increases its profitability.

• Most lawyers want to focus their practices on providing the best possible representation to their clients. Although legal research is an important component of this, it tends to consume a disproportionate amount of time and resources, and can distract from other important tasks such as fact development and strategizing, Because of financial and time constraints, legal research often is not completed thoroughly or may be neglected altogether. Outsourcing lifts the research 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.

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