What is LPO: Legal Process Outsourcing?

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is one of the value added BPO services or the practice of a law firm or corporate legal department obtaining legal support services from an overseas law firm or legal support services company(low wage market), so that it turns out to be more economical. Countries like United States of America, Europe, UK, Germany, Australia outsource to cheaper destinations like India, Philippines etc.

The services given in LPO are:

·         contract drafting,

·         contract review and monitoring,

·         document review for due diligence,

·         patent drafting,

·         legal coding,

·         corporate secretarial services,

·         legal memo development,

·         transcription,

·         document management,

·         litigation support ,

·         data entry,

·         trade mark and copyright registration,

·        Simple filings and legal research.

·         Outsourcing is said to help firms to perform well in their core competencies and mitigate shortage of skill or expertise in the areas where they want to outsource. Outsourcing can offer greater budget flexibility and control. Law firms across the globe can greatly benefit from off- shoring legal services to India. Along with the low labor cost, India possesses a large, highly-qualified labor pool.
India also boasts one of the largest pools of English-speaking graduates in the world. Also, India's legal system is grounded in British common law which makes India a ready market.

The demerits of outsourcing include:
risk of leakage,

·         reduction of client confidentiality and privacy ,

·         Security concerns,

·         Cutback in the domestic legal jobs in the US and UK ,

·        Initial cost of training the respective Indian lawyers to maintain quality and Malpractice / Practice law without license.