The 2009 economic downturn created a boom in the offshore review industry. The cost of review still dominates the eDiscovery lifecycle and is the top target for budget-conscious corporate legal departments. Corporate counsel tends to start with the actual hourly wages of reviewers because that does not change their current workflow. Some work with pools of contract attorneys to bring the hourly rates down to $25-$80 per hour. But this still requires outside or inside counsel to manage the review and invest in the review platform to host the data. Outsourced service providers have traditionally handled the large, multiparty matters and supplied both project management as well as offshore contract reviewers. This is the root of the new Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) service model. Integreon, one of the largest LPO players, announced that it had been named in a writ for unlicensed practice of law to the Madras High Court in India.
The root issue seems to be a culture clash between the ‘Noble Profession’ that India advocates aspire to and the harsh economic reality of global law firms as multinational business entities. The writ from the Association of Indian Lawyers accuses the firms of using the LPOs to effectively practice law in India without being enrolled as advocates as required by law. There are monetary arguments and issues, but the Association seems to care more about the territorial intrusion as well as the way that the LPO’s have commoditized legal services. They even go so far as to level charges of immigration law violations due to the practice of using tourist visas for associates and visiting counsel.
via Is Your LPO Partner Breaking the Law? | eDiscovery Journal.
