The Financial Times (London) has published its annual “Innovative Lawyers” edition (17 October 2008), based on extensive research which finds that legal process outsourcing is a leading legal market trend.
Thought Leaders is the lead article in a collection around the innovation theme:
“[T]he trend that is having the most impact on the thinking of the partners at top law firms, according to the research for this report, is the impact of globalisation and its intersection with people and technology… Outsourcing to India was the theme of many top-ranked submissions both from company legal departments and private practice… LPO may have a huge growth spurt as top corporate clients in the US and Europe cut costs.” [emphasis added]
The article cites corporate example of Deutsche Bank and BT and law firms Clifford Chance and Baker & McKenzie for their offshoring initiatives.
Two related articles discuss specific outsourcing examples. Use IT or lose it cites Baker & McKenzie for its “combined outsourcing and offshoring” which creates an “insourcing” hybrid in Manila, where the firm’s “Global Services Manila, accounts for about 5 per cent of the firm’s total staff and is linked to the rest of the firm by technology, culture and reporting lines.” Structural engineering cites Clifford Chance for taking “two vital but relatively routinised support functions ‘information technology and finance’ and centralis[ing] them in one place: India.”
Innovative Lawyers is a collection of articles reporting on the full range of FT’s research. For highlights of other articles, please see my personal blog post at FT.com Innovative Law Firms.
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