US and UK law firms are eager to practice law in India but regulations make that impossible for the moment. In the mean time, firms are doing what they can. For example, Allen & Overy signs Indian alliance (TheLawyer.com, 22 Feb 2008) reports that “Allen & Overy (A&O) has signed a referral relationship with Indian law firm Trilegal.”
If big US and UK law firms could operate freely in India, it would create the potential to use their India offices as “insourcing” resources for some substantive law and support at a lower cost than is possible onshore in the US or UK.
Working at a knowledge and legal process outsourcing company, I don’t lose sleep over this possibility. It’s not clear if and when India will liberalize its legal market. Moreover, both US and UK law firms already have an opportunity to take advantage of internal labor arbitrage opportunities. That is, an AmLaw 10 firm in NYC or Magic Circle firm in London could tap resources in lower cost offices (e.g., the US midwest for the NYC, Eastern Europe for the UK).
I have seen occasional press reports of clients asking for this type of arrangement or firms offering it. And there have been a few articles about GC moving work from top firms to smaller firms in lower cost, lower margin locations. But if it happens more than occasionally, firms and clients are not talking about it openly.
So, in the tradition of precedent, it does not seem likely that there would be a rush to move work from onshore locations to law offices in India.
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