LPOs – Ray of Hope for US legal industry

The recession has ruthlessly impacted the global legal industry. The series of layoffs has crashed upon the US legal industry. Similar to investment banks, law firms and legal departments in US stretched their employee rolls during the growth. With the sudden hold back in the financial sector, the law firms and legal departments are also lessening and announcing layoffs in order to confront the diminishing profits.

Law firms are figuring out more creative ways to deal with the economic crisis by scrutinizing their own staffing, budgets, and workflow. Pay cuts and layoffs are becoming routine. Few of the law firms in US have begun to reward lawyers on the basis of performance while others have slashed salaries for starting associates. The law firms are struggling hard to cut down cost to cope up with the global economic crisis.

The law firms and legal departments are suffering severely from drop in legal work. The slowdown has impacted their revenue stream badly. The legal departments are focusing on keeping more work in house in order to slash down the external fees. The law firms are dealing with a problem of more attorneys than work. In house Counsels and law firms are canceling their annual meetings or are holding them at office despite of an offsite resort. The firms have limited budget and are cutting cost wherever possible. They are under tremendous pressure to explore ways that help them fight the crisis situation.

In this tough time of global downturn, LPOs have emerged as a ray of hope for the US law firms. To cut down costs many US law firms and legal departments are outsourcing their legal projects to countries like India. LPOs provide a huge cost saving advantage to the US law firms along with services as and when required. A junior associate in US approximately costs around $200,000 a year whereas a LPO can offer a dedicated fulltime attorney for under $60,000 a year. The cost savings offered by the LPOs are significant to attract more and more law firms to outsource their legal work to countries like India in order to minimize their cost and survive in this crisis.

Legal process outsourcing industry therefore has a compelling value proposition to law firms and legal departments in US as it substantially increases their profit margins and streamlines their work process. LPOs provide law firms and legal departments with more skillful legal talent - lawyers in place of paralegals -- in a different country for low-level work at a fraction of the expense that would incur in their home country. LPOs are undoubtedly the boon for In House Counsels and law firms in the current scenario.

Role of KPO Consultants

KPO Consultants is a pioneering consulting company in the Legal Process Outsourcing industry. Infact, our specialty is helping buyers finding right vendor cum partner in India. KPO Consultants is widely connected with India’s premier legal process outsourcing service providers.

KPO Consultants can ease the process of executing your global outsourcing objectives by developing a 'Come to India' strategy so that you hit the ground running. KPO Consultants can help you find the right outsourcing partner that fits your requirements by undergoing a due diligence process. Depending on the client's specific requirements, we offer end-to-end project execution and modular services.

The author – Daisy Cooper – is the Research Analyst at KPO Consultatns. To learn more about Legal Outsourcing, Legal Offshoring, LPO in Indiaand more – visit www.kpoconsultants.com