Smith Dornan Dehn an international media, entertainment and intellectual property law firm from New York, Los Angeles, and London, launched its legal service offshoring business from Mysore, India about a year ago. Some of Smith Dornan Dehn’s current clients are Sony Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, HBO and the Clinton organization. Its Indian subsidiary is SDD Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd the only legal process outsourcing company in India managed by a United States law firm.
SDD Global Solutions is a 24/365, state-of-the-art, high-end legal services KPO company. It performs high-end legal research, analysis and drafting, and claims to be the equivalent of a global law firm in many ways.
It has already attracted numerous Fortune 100 clients and their accompanying assets and profits, among them a number of international retail brands, some American book publishers and several major television and motion picture companies and law firms.
SDD Global is now in the process of moving to its own 330-employee building. It will soon be hiring 200 new recruits but plans to expand its number of employees to 50,000 in the near future.
The company is funded by SFP Priority Co. Ltd., a member of the SFP Group, a large Asia-based investor, as well as by State Bank of India and investors from Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, and Cisco Systems.
SDD Global claims to be solving one of the most pressing problems of today’s businesses, i.e. the inadequacy of having legal work done in locations that often are among the most expensive, and the least productive.
It has also described the launch of its India operations from Mysore as a “paradigm shift in the way legal services are provided in the 21st century”.

Justia’s Tim Stanley has recently launched BlawgSearch. This is a search engine that combs through and searches lawyer and law-related blogs. It is bound to be a great research tool for lawyers.
BlawgSearch allows you to search across numerous lawyer blogs to see what other lawyers have to say about a particular case or law and because it filters out irrelevant searches, you find strictly legal blog content here.
At present the search engine is following over 1000 blawgs in 40 categories and is still growing. It has a blawg directory, with subject and locality categories, besides a blawg-rankings system.
[Read more →]

It’s out- The Black Book of Outsourcing-2007.
The book by Douglas Brown and Scott Wilson is an all inclusive directory and guide to the ever expanding arena of outsourcing. It offers expert advice on coping with the political features of outsourcing, operating outsourcing programs and even finding a career in outsourcing.

From guidelines to outsourcing management to opportunities in outsourcing the Black Book of Outsourcing tells it all. The one of a kind book makes a comprehensive and detailed study of one of the fastest growing facts of the global economy-outsourcing.
[Read more →]

Alberto R. Gonzales, a longtime confidant and aide of President Bush, had resigned this year from the post of attorney general following the hullabaloo regarding the sacking of nine federal prosecutors by the Justice Department.
In spite of this controversy he has been bestowed a debatable honor. Gonzales has now been named Lawyer of the Year by the ABA Journal, a publication of the American Bar Association in its January 2008 issue, the same journal that has disagreed with the Bush administration on a number of matters. It reasons that he has been the most prominent newsmaker in the legal world of 2007.
Besides quoting the “slow-motion destruction” of Gonzales, the ABA Journal also predicted that Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, his successor, could be Lawyer of the Year in 2008 while he attempts to restore the reputation of the Justice Department.
ABA Journal’s editor and publisher, Edward A. Adams, has been quoted as saying that the award however, does not serve as a commentary on the effectiveness of Gonzales during his term as attorney general.
Says Adams, “It’s about who has had the most effect in the world of lawyers this year…We’re not saying Gonzales is good or bad. We’re just saying this is the leading newsmaker in our part of the world.”
It was pointed out that the decision to draw attention to Gonzales and Mukasey was not made by ABA but by the magazine’s journalists.
The Justice Department which is investigating allegations of perjury and witness tampering against Gonzales made no comment on the award.

For all tea enthusiasts, connoisseurs and fans of Darjeeling tea, it may come as a relief perhaps in case you get duped, that Darjeeling tea is the first India commodity to be included in the EU registry for Geographical indications (GI).
What does this mean?
This will prevent ‘fake’ tea originating from places other than the Darjeeling area tea gardens from being sold and marketed in the EU market.
India applied for this inclusion in the EU registry last week. India will have a domestic certification system to my personal relief and build a unified supply chain for all gardens in Darjeeling.
The India Tea board has apparently fought at least 15 cases against infringement and misuse of the ‘Darjeeling’ name, the notables being from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and amazingly France.
Additionally, the Tea Board rejected the Trademark application for Darjeeling Nouveau by a US company ‘Republic of Tea’ (ROT) – no harm intended to the acronym, apparently unable to prove that consumers view Darjeeling as a generic type, as opposed to tea from the Darjeeling region in India.
What does this do for me: I will continue to peacefully and confidently enjoy my very many cuppas a day of Darjeeling tea and feel at peace that at least today I am consuming the real thing. In the back of my mind, however I am still thinking am I really assured that my precious leaves origins are true to my favorite Darjeeling garden, for two years is a long time to be granted GI status by the EU.

Please no fakes, be nice. I love my Darjeeling.

The other day I did a blog on how the falling dollar is affecting Indian outsourcing companies.
Today we look at the other side of the coin-how it is hurting the American outsourcers.
U.S. companies had looked to India for their outsourcing in the first place with the intention of saving money.
Now, with the dollar plunging the way it has, things have suddenly become more expensive for the Americans.
[Read more →]