Last week I was extremely privileged to have been invited to speak at the Berkeley School of Law at a conference hosted by the Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. The conference, entitled International Outsourcing of the Legal Profession, was the fifth topic specific (i.e. solely devoted to the subject of offshore legal outsourcing) conference that I’ve attended over the last year. Trust me when I assure you that I have by no means attended every such event on the subject. Off the top of my head I can recollect at least four others which for a variety of reasons I declined to attend. There are probably others that have no doubt slipped my mind or that I was never aware of in the first place. However, with a myriad of legal outsourcing panel sessions now firmly tucked under my belt, I feel compelled to share with my readers some of the conclusions that I have reached on their often generic format and content.

Before embarking on my rant I genuinely want to stress that the Berkeley conference was an extremely well run, professional and interesting event. My comments that follow are by no means directed towards this specific conference. In fact I’d go as far to say that at Berkeley the content was significantly more along the lines of what I determine as being unquestionably useful for the attending delegates. Nevertheless, if the objective is to afford practical, pragmatic information, aimed at facilitating attendees’ decision-making processes, then I contend that the panel sessions’ content must now begin to move beyond the rhetoric into the operating details.

First, make no mistake about it, at all of these conferences the number of vendors will generally outweigh the number of real potential “clients”. Until the vendor market consolidates and/or the content moves beyond the basics of legal outsourcing I don’t see this situation changing. Second, without clear guidance from the conference organizers you run the risk on being on the receiving end of a blatant sales pitch. If I were a client attending such an event, I would find a sales pitch to be both amateur and a complete waste of my time. My reaction would be one of utter disdain towards the organization so obviously propounding the utilization of their own services coupled with a mild irritation at the conference organizers for allowing such a party to slip through the net. Third, and in my opinion the most frustrating, without pre-conference liaising and planning between not only the speakers on each panel but between the different panels you will inevitably suffer from duplicated material from one panel to the next.

I have listed below a small selection of panel titles (some of my own are included so no one can accuse me of not being self-critical!) that to all intents and purposes covered a lot of the same ground time after time.

Choose the Right Model for Outsourcing your Legal Services
Recognizing and Preparing for Other Important Impediments to LPO
The Fundamentals of Legal Process Outsourcing
Obstacles to Outsourcing
Impact of Outsourcing on the Legal Profession
The Ethical and Liability Risks in Outsourcing Legal Services
Dispelling the myths of legal outsourcing
Examining the Security & Privacy Risks in Legal Outsourcing
What to Look for in Choosing an LPO
Shaping the Future of Legal Outsourcing: What Every Law Firm Needs to Know

I don’t want anyone to think that I’m downplaying the importance of the above topics but it’s easy to see how “Obstacles to outsourcing” could cover the same territory as “What every law firm needs to know.” To date there have only been 4 Bar Association opinions dealing with the ethics of outsourcing legal work. There is no legislation, no case law, no precedent. We don’t need to have the conference chair person, each panel moderator and two or three separate panels covering this topic! Along the same lines, we certainly don’t need several LPO panel presentations at each and every conference called, “How to choose a provider.” These should really be renamed, “This is why you should choose us!” Choose LawScribe/Integreon/Pangea3/Mindcrest/SQ Global/SDD Global because because …..

I guess I’m at the stage now where if I hear any of the following buzz words - 70,000 attorneys qualifying annually, common law jurisdiction, New York Bar Association, English speaking workforce - one more time, I’m going to yell out, “BINGO!” Would it be beyond the realm of possibilities for different providers to plan in advance of such conferences which subjects they intend to cover?

Please feel free to comment on this blog and let me know if you disagree, but the most productive sessions that I have attended and those I vehemently believe to be of the most value involve real life, practical case studies. In these sessions you have an LPO executive and either a General or Corporate counsel or senior attorney running through step by step how they took a particular project or function offshore, how much it cost and how much it saved. By delving into the reality of an ongoing operation you minimize the necessity of extolling the theory behind how to choose a provider or the obstacles involved in outsourcing because these issues are made apparent in a practical context.

There should be a specific document review case study dealing with why the client felt compelled to go offshore in the first place, the platform used, how long it took to go live, the review and accuracy rate etc. Don’t hypothesize about the theoretical necessity to undertake a site visit when a case study can provide insight into whether this actually happened. Oftentimes during litigation one isn’t afforded the luxury of sufficient time to send a fact-finding trip to India. Another panel can deal with the offshoring of patent related support work. This should allow a deep analysis of the difficulties associated with full compliance with the Export Control regulations. I don’t mean just a couple of bullet points with the panelists umming and aahing, “Oh yes, you need to ensure compliance with the export control regulations;” – that means nothing. I have clients who have had certain technologies restricted following unsuccessful applications for export licenses. Let’s take a detailed look at the reasons why some applications succeed and others fail.

I understand that in the grand scheme of things this industry is still in its nascent stages (another buzz word). However, it is the responsibility of those of us who speak at these events and are involved in the industry both from a thought leadership and operational perspective to take the content to the next level. Having said all that I suppose it’s about time that I signed off and started preparing my presentation for my next conference on Monday – I think I’ll call it, Offshore Legal Outsourcing, the Myths, the Ethics and all that Jazz

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