What do law firms look for while outsourcing legal processes?

The prosperity of law firms is largely dependent on the camaraderie they build by providing quality of service, consistency, timeliness; and in defining and defending their client’s legal/contractual rights. The relationship between a law firm and a client develops on trust and transcends generations. To maintain and sustain relationship with clients, law firms avoid emphasizing on the attractiveness of reduction in cost of legal services by using global resources. But, it does not elude the significant pressure that this industry faces in minimizing the cost of legal work. Indeed, it necessitates outsourcing of legal work to legal process outsourcing service providers who perform the work at significantly decreased costs.

Legal Process Outsourcing is a high-end industry that has been growing rapidly in the recent years. It is the process of assigning law-related tasks to external firms, globally, which are capable in handling those tasks efficiently. There is a plethora of small and large-scale law firms who outsource legal work to external firms nowadays. Legal Process Outsourcing accords law firms with opportunities to access high-level talent and niche expertise that may not be existing within the firm. Access to external talent is predominantly useful for small firms to fill gaps in internal competencies. It also allows domestic firms to tap into global expertise.

The outsourcing of legal work also aids in enhancing the overall development of law firms. This is conceivable since law firms can focus more on specialized areas and their precious resources can be freed up in furtherance of the outsourced tasks. The overall development can improve if they focus on developing their core businesses.

Out of the many determinants that endorse the services of legal process outsourcing firms, a few are globalization, increasing price of legal services, development of the internet, automation, improved security, and legal software. The purpose of outsourcing legal servicesis to cater to the needs of the law firms and provide them with every single solution. While many of the outsourcing activities involve working upon standardized tasks, there are firms which require legal research and litigation related documents in a manner that requires professional expertise.

Some of the key concerns that law firms have in outsourcing legal work is the quality of work, costs, security and confidentiality. The law firms, therefore, look for legal process outsourcing service providers that are competent to take up the challenges and deliver class apart services to its clients. The legal process outsourcing service providers need to recognize the emerging expectations and criteria of the law firms and in-house counsels to be able to create better value for its clients. It requires the service providers to be process oriented, technology enabled and be able to offer the right mix of resources at competitive prices. Law firms, therefore, outsource their legal services to have access to a breadth of skills, technology and service offerings, at a reduced cost!