Legal Process Outsourcing: Is It an Option For Your Business?

Posted on Oct 29 2018 - 1:26pm by Editor

The legal industry has started out largely as an exclusively corporate office job, but in recent times there has been a global paradigm shift. As technology and internet speeds continuously get better, the delivery model for legal services has changed. This new model is called legal process outsourcing; it works by connecting clients with outsourcing providers and external firms that are located either locally or overseas, allowing the latter to complete the legal and law-related tasks needed by the former. It’s growing in popularity even among the biggest law firms as well as corporate legal departments, as it increases flexibility and minimizes costs.

Legal Process Outsourcing

Want to know if legal process outsourcing is good for your business? We’ve put together a list of its top advantages:

Cost Efficiency 

This is probably one of the foremost advantages of legal process outsourcing. It can be due to labor arbitrage, which is the wage difference between in-house legal employees and outsourced providers. Outsourcing work overseas can provide even greater cost benefits, as the cost of labor overseas can be 70% less than in the US and the UK, and their infrastructure and market costs may be considerably lower.

Quicker Turnaround 

Outsourcing work to internal personnel also lifts the weight off internal bandwidth, thereby giving more priority to important legal projects. Some companies even utilize a combination of both in-house and outsourced teams to finish a project, both teams working on complementing shifts to finish a job in the span of 24 hours instead of spending daily shifts over a couple of days. For example, a US-based company working a standard 12-hour shift would simply hand over their projects to an India-based company who would be starting their shifts as the US shifts end, completing unfinished tasks by the time another US shift begins.

External Talent 

Giving legal work to external providers would also allow for businesses to personally sift and choose high level talents that aren’t necessarily present within the firm. This is perfect for both small firms and bigger, more established firms, as it directly addresses concerns about internal competencies. This also allows companies to zone in on areas that require a specific amount of expertise and tap into niche providers, as well as a large pool of experts, as providers can be located just about anywhere.

Flexibility 

Having an offshore team allows the in-house team to tailor their tasks and schedules according to client demands and workload. Efficient workflow is one of the main problems in law firms for example, as it becomes difficult to easily spread variability to enough attorneys, clients, and support staff. Outsourcing easily allows a firm to quickly adjust and scale for projects and cases, as well as reduce overhead costs.

Defined as the utilization of resources outside a business’ internal operations, outsourcing has been proven to keep workflows running smoothly. If you’re a small firm buckling under a huge case that drains all your time and resources, outsourcing the work lightens the burden by relegating tasks to external employees. Big businesses can also rely on outsourcing’s flexibility and cost savings to keep them running at maximum efficiency without having to constantly hire additional staff.

Globalization is a huge motivator for outsourcing as the pricing of legal services are rising increasingly as a response to internet development, legal software, automation, and improved security, with which outsourcing offers itself up as a perfect alternative and solution. Whether you’re a small law firm that’s just trying to get a foothold in the business by taking in several seemingly unsustainable projects and cases, or a big company with a legal department struggling to keep up with projects, legal process outsourcing may just be the best solution for you.