http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002355.html
Washington Post
Sunday, May 11, 2008; A20
U.S. Legal Work Booms in India
New Outsourcing Industry Is Growing 60 Percent Annually
GURGAON, India -- When Aashish Sharma graduated from law school two
years ago, his father had visions of seeing him argue in an Indian
court and eventually become an honorable judge.
Instead, Sharma, 25, now sits all day in front of a computer in a
plush, air-conditioned suburban office doing litigation research and
drafting legal contracts for U.S. companies and law firms. He is part
of a booming new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands
of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small
fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers.
"It is much better than going to court in India and dealing with all
kinds of rough people. Working in legal outsourcing is a happy career
move for me, although my father does not fully understand what I am
doing here after my education in Indian law," said Sharma, who began
working in February for an outsourcing company called Quatrro. "I am
getting valuable exposure to the American judicial system, corporate
law and their way of working."
Legal process outsourcing is being called the next big thing in Indian
business. It marks India's climb up the chain of outsourcing jobs --
from low-end, back-office service functions in call centers to high-
value, skilled legal work.
In the past three years, the legal outsourcing industry here has grown
about 60 percent annually. According to a report by research firm
ValueNotes, the industry will employ about 24,000 people and earn
revenue of $640 million by 2010.
Indian workers who once helped with legal transcription now offer
services that include research, litigation support, document discovery
and review, drafting of contracts and patent writing. The industry
offers an attractive career path for many of the 300,000 Indians who
enroll in law schools every year. India and the United States share a
common-law legal system rooted in Britain's, and both conduct
proceedings in English.
The explosion of opportunity here was triggered by what are known as
"e-discovery laws," a set of U.S. regulations established in 2006 to
govern the storage and management of electronic data for federal court
actions. Overnight, the volume of information to be stored, archived,
filtered and reviewed for litigation swelled. But there were not
enough affordable lawyers or paralegals to do the work in the United
States.
"The new e-discovery rules sent American companies scurrying all over
the place. Neither the corporates nor the law firms in America are
geared to do this kind of work at short notice. And that is where the
Indian players come in. We can bring together a large number of
skilled lawyers in no time at all and at one-fifth the cost," said
Srinivas Pingali, executive vice president at Quatrro, which also
offers technical support, credit card fraud management, consumer
research and architectural services for American clients, among other
work.
Pingali said that the economic slowdown in the United States has not
hurt his company's business. In fact, legal work related to
bankruptcies has increased.
Because of the sensitive nature of legal work, Indian outsourcing
companies have tried to allay the concerns about confidentiality. They
have installed closed-circuit televisions, network safeguards and hack-
proof servers.
Many outsourcing companies in India already have those security
measures in place because they have been handling the credit card and
banking operations of global companies for more than a decade.
Industry members say that outsourcing of legal work to India is a
natural next step.
"Ninety percent of a lawyer's work is legal research and drafting, and
all this can now be offshored to India," said Russell Smith, who
worked in a Manhattan law firm called SmithDehn before moving to India
to set up an outsourcing company in 2006. "A large portion of our fees
in the U.S. is because of office rent. It is often a big decision to
hire one attorney in the U.S. In India, we can hire 10 at a time and
train them all at once."
Smith's Indian company, SDD Global Solutions, handled much of the
legal work for the film "Borat." Other clients include the Washington-
based firm Appleton & Associates and U.S. movie studios and television
networks.
"My people in India can do everything from here, except sign the
opinion letter and appear in an American court," he said.
Smith's Indian office recently researched and drafted the motion
papers for the dismissal of a libel case against the producers of
HBO's "Da Ali G Show." Smith said that if it had not been for the
cheaper option of outsourcing, the producers would have settled.
For many law graduates, the contrast between the Indian and American
judicial systems comes as a surprise. India's overburdened courts,
with 13 judges for every 1 million people, are characterized by
backlogs and delays.
Sharma, the Quatrro employee, said he was fascinated by the speed of
proceedings and judgments in the American system.
Indian employees have to undergo rigorous training in U.S. legal and
judicial practices before they can take on projects. But lawyers with
experience in the United States say there are challenges in training
Indians.
"They write in flowery, British-style English," said Kunoor Chopra,
who came to India to set up the offshore legal support firm LawScribe
in 2004 after working for Fulbright & Jaworski in Los Angeles. "It is
almost like an unlearning process. They have to be retrained to write
in crisp, short sentences. A licensed attorney from California comes
to train all my new employees in contract writing, review and
research."
Meanwhile, Sharma said he learns something new every day doing legal
work for Americans.
"I have learned so many new words," he said. "I keep Dictionary.com on
standby. Recently, I had to look up the word 'esquire.' I always
thought it meant a respectable gentleman. But in America, it means an
attorney."
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