Frequently Asked Questions

1. Does outsourcing of legal services to IDEAL Legal Services LPO mean a compromise in quality?

2. What kind of cost savings can be expected by outsourcing legal to IDEAL Legal Services LPO?

Outsourcing legal work to India, can result in savings of up to 50% or more. As The New York Times reported: “The reason for the shift [to outsourcing legal work] echoes the reason companies are sending other work abroad: they save substantial amounts of money. Some companies say they can reduce certain legal costs by as much as 50 percent, and receive work that rivals what they can obtain in the United States. According to Dennis Archer, the President of the American Bar Association, ‘The need to cut costs reaches across many departments, so it should be no surprise that it goes to the legal department as well.’”

The financial advantages of legal outsourcing to India that can accrue to the clients of IDEAL Legal Services are seen not only in the well-known differences between salaries and costs of living among the workforces of the U.S. and India, but also in the price of office space, which is ultimately paid for by a law firm’s clients. Many traditional law firms locate virtually all of their personnel in relatively expensive offices in the largest cities in the United States. This tradition has led to a situation in which most of each dollar that these firms charge their clients pays for office rent. Our associates in India, as part of the IDEAL Network, work in state-of-the-art facilities at 1/43rd the cost of comparable space in major U.S. cities. This is a major part of the way we maintain our assurance to clients that they are paying for legal services, not real estate.

3. Can legal work be done faster by outsourcing it to India?

Yes. On the subject of speed, the advantages of outsourcing legal work to India, and in particular, to SDD Global, are extraordinary. Our legal outsourcing teams add approximately 12 hours to the normal legal services workday. As law firm attorneys or in-house counsel in the West head home to sleep, a fresh round of legal work on the day shift in India is just beginning, in a time zone that is essentially a day ahead. Our speed is also enhanced by the number of SDD Global legal associates that our clients now can afford to devote to any given case, thanks to legal outsourcing. As a situation demands, we can provide the assistance of a single researcher or an entire platoon of trained legal process outsourcing (LPO) professionals, thus enabling our clients to “flood the zone” where such an approach is warranted.

This is virtually the opposite of the practice of many large Western law firms, which, by necessity, must promise their clients "lean staffing," to address well-founded fears of compounded hourly fees climbing through the roof. Our aim in facilitating the outsourcing of legal work is to help obtain the desired result for our clients as quickly as possible, through the appropriate and unstinting application of concentrated legal talent. We have found that in using this approach, we and our supervising U.S. attorneys often run circles around the so-called "lean staffing" of mega-firms.

4. Is legal outsourcing to India allowed by U.S. ethical rules?

Yes. At least two ethics panels already have addressed the issue, and both ruled in favor of legal process outsourcing (LPO). As The New York Times reported, “ ‘there is no problem with off-shoring,’ said Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law and a legal ethics expert, ‘because even though the lawyer in India is not authorized by an American state to practice law, the review by American lawyers sanitizes the process.’ ” (“Corporate America Sending More Legal Work to Bombay,” March 14, 2004.)

5. Where did the term, “LPO,” come from?

The term, “LPO,” for “legal process outsourcing”, is apparently a media invention, first appearing in 2005. It derives from BPO, or business process outsourcing. But to the extent that the word, "process," suggests standardized, commoditized, easy-to-replicate tasks that can be performed without a lot of education, much less professional training, it is a misnomer for the legal services offshoring industry. Typing a medical transcription, or answering calls based on a script, is a "process." On the other hand, legal research, legal analysis, or drafting complaints, contracts, patent applications, or legal briefs, is not a BPO-like, commoditized "process." Those are legal services, even if they do not amount to "practicing law," which can only be done by the supervising, licensed attorney (often in-house corporate counsel) who reviews the services that so-called LPO companies provide.

That is why many in this industry do not refer to themselves as “LPOs.” One company uses the phrase, a "provider of global legal and patent outsourced services." Another refers to itself as a "premium legal services company." Others refer to their "Legal Knowledge Services" or "Offshore Legal Services." Still another has adopted the label of "legal services organization."

Yet another potential misnomer is “outsourcing.” There is nothing new or controversial about the outsourcing of legal services. Every law firm in the U.S. and the U.K. is an outsourcing company. Their corporate clients have routinely “outsourced” legal services work to outside counsel for hundreds of years. If there were no outsourcing, there would be no law firms. What is new is not outsourcing, but offshoring. What is new is the creation of a worldwide legal landscape, where offices and employees will be located in places determined by the actual needs of clients, rather than the habits of law firms that do not wish to change.

On July 28, 36 representatives from 21 legal off-shoring companies held an historic meeting in New Delhi, to form the first trade association for the industry. After hearing the voices expressed there, our guess is that a new, more accurate term will emerge for what we do. Perhaps it will be “Legal Services Offshoring,” or “LSO.” That would be a better and more useful term than “LPO.”, but regardless of what other companies choose, IDEAL will continue with the use of LPO.

6. Can you point to any success stories, to show that Indian legal outsourcing companies can provide high-quality legal services?

The idea of outsourcing high-end legal services to India has moved well past the conceptual, to the real. If it does not involve walking into court, holding a client’s hand, signing an opinion letter, or signing a court filing, most likely it can be done in India. Western legal services available in India include legal research, drafting of commercial contracts and litigation papers, applications for U.S. and U.K. immigration visas, patent applications and analytics, and a whole host of other high-value work.

Indian lawyers at one of our competitor companies already have drafted a brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, involving the application to a tax dispute of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For another example, in an article entitled, “Fortune 500 Firms Driving LPO Industry,” one of India’s leading financial newspapers, The Business Standard, reported on accomplishments of an LPO provider as follows:

"Sony Pictures had to [obtain] 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 U.S. and Sony gave it a second thought. Eventually, the job was done in India for $43,000. "

The LPO provider's draft of this 45-page opinion letter, complete with 242 footnotes, each citing pertinent legal authorities, led to the green-lighting of a major motion picture, which might otherwise have not been released.

To cite still another example, and LPO provider was hired to draft a 50-state legal survey for a U.S. medical services company. Here is a portion of a “thank you” letter written by the CEO of a grateful LPO client:

"You may not be aware, but we had a small portion of that research complete when we hired [you]. As a test, we had your team reproduce some of the same work done by our nationally recognized law firm. The legal research and opinions that your team produced were essentially identical, except for the price tag. Your group saved us 90%, and completed the work in less than half the time. For clarification, the research you did in less than one month saved us over $200,000."