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.