Performing Diligence on your Outsourcing Vendor
On 25August the ABA released its opinion on legal outsourcing. According to it, legal outsourcing is ethical as long as lawyers appoint suitable providers and abide by the Model Rules.
It would do us good to remind ourselves of the guidelines provided by the ABA on correctly using Legal Process Outsourcing although we may be already be aware of them, and of the Model Rules from time to time.

One very important suggestion was that a lawyer intending to outsource /offshore work must first do diligence on the vendor.
This can be done by
• Meeting the offshore lawyers with whom you will be working.
• Making sure to verify claims of client confidentiality, security and up to the mark standards. Do not take things at face value.
• Finding out about procedures that come under the jurisdiction of the location of your vendor to be.
• Making sure you will be able to enforce confidentiality, and agree only to conflict-check contracts or service-level agreements. Make sure that your vendor is not completely based in an alien location but also has a local US based representative.
• Decide what areas come under your direct supervision, but also ensure that you will be able to supervise and oversee any part of the operation at any time you so choose to.
• Make sure that your client is informed about your intention of outsourcing his/her work.
As a purchaser it is your duty to abide by the appropriate professional requirements and follow them in relation to recruitment, training, security and expertise.

IQPC (the International Quality and Productivity Centre) will be holding its 1st Legal Process Outsourcing conference in Chicago, from Oct 20-22.
It aims at providing its delegates with first hand insight into real life case studies from AM law 200 firms, major corporations, as well as from some of the world’s top 5 LPOs. It is expected to attract top LPO experts who will share their ideas about the current changes taking place in the legal industry.
There will be real case studies touching on Intellectual Property & Contract management, e-discovery & documentation review.
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On January 16, 2008 LEX Outsourcing, a global LPO firm based in Mumbai, India, merged with ATI Avocats to form the Indian law firm, LEX Nexus with effect from September 12.
LEX Outsourcing offers many services to the legal community such as Legal research, contract drafting, litigation support services, business formation, and corporate law in English.
It also provides non-legal services involving legal data entry, transcription and legal billing.
Managing Partner of LEX Outsourcing, Suhail Farooqui believes that LPO services should be provided by legal sector alone or managed by qualified lawyers as they understand the industry and requirements of clients which is why LEX Outsourcing comes so highly recommended.
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