Overview of Legal Process Outsourcing
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is a practice in which an entity or corporation obtains all the legal and allied services from an external legal agency. TAP GLOBAL has been a preferred choice in companies of over 20 countries for managing their legal vertical for 10+years.
The Legal process outsourcing is carried out by a unit offshore which involves services like contract drafting, legal research, document review, property conveying checks or any other work that does not include the physical presence or contact of the attorney at a relatively low cost. Outsourcing these services mainly aims to reduce the burden on international lawyers and streamline their productivity.
Legal Process Outsourcing became prominent in India in early 2000 due to the suggestions of third-party vendors to establish the legal process outsourcing industries to reduce the legal costs in the UK, USA, Canada etc. The LPO sector has witnessed tremendous growth in India, owing to the availability of skilled advocates and paralegals, making many investors keen to enter this sector.
Legal Process Outsourcing: Advantages
The advantages of Legal Process Outsourcing are as follows:
Cost Effective
Obtaining Legal Process Outsourcing services from India can be pretty cost-effective for foreign counties as there is a significant difference in the labour costs in India and other foreign countries. This enables organisations to get their work through skilled labour at low costs.
Use of Advanced Technology
LPOs utilise advanced technology and research tools to protect the confidential documents of their clients and speed up the vetting process, which enhances the accuracy of the legal work.
Trained Personnel
India has trained and experienced legal professionals with expertise in managing legal work. India has always been a favourite destination for foreign companies for outsourcing work from different BPO setups to managing the accounting functionalities of foreign client companies. This makes the process streamlined for these organisations at a lower cost.
Enhanced Flexibility
The LPOs provide round-the-clock services to their clients, which helps to avoid the issue of the time difference between countries, which offers flexibility in the legal process and minimises the delivery time. Flexibility has always been an issue with managing foreign clients. TAP GLOBAL has a team of professionals working 24*7 to provide legal assistance in every corner of the globe.
Provides Exposure to Lawyers/ Law Students
The LPOs in India deal with various foreign laws and regulations, which help Indian lawyers learn about the working of foreign law firms and gain expertise in working with the best industry software. This increases job opportunities for students pursuing law, which is very important for the promotion of legal education around the world. This alternative career opportunity to the traditional litigation setup has attracted many students across the country.
Provide control to the Parent Entity
The LPO Services enable the parent organisation, i.e. the foreign firm, to have better control over the projects as it helps them to set up the scope, timeframe, and budget of the outsourced legal work. Outsourcing Legal operations also provide better operational and administrative control over the legal and operating procedure.
Focus on Core Operation
The LPO help the foreign organisation to focus better on their core operations as most of their work is outsourced to the LPOs. Outsourcing the legal functions of a company shifts the focus of the company to shift their focus on the core operations of the business. Businesses around the globe have always found that managing the legal operations of their business, hence outsourcing the whole department, saves cost and important time for the business.
Project Orientations in an LPO
The pricing models used by LPOs are given below
Fixed Rate Projects
In this model, a fixed amount is charged for the whole duration of a project. However, a little flexibility in costs per market conditions may be allowed.
Variable Pricing Projects
The project's cost depends on the current market conditions in this kind of pricing model.
Pay per Unit Projects
Here the price is charged at a pre-decided amount for each part of the project. The project's parts may be priced differently per the amount of work and complications involved.
Cost Plus Profit Projects
The entity outsourcing work has to pay additional charges for a fixed percentage of the project. This model is not very flexible regarding changing business technologies/objectives.
Profit and Risk-Sharing Projects
In this model, the organisation and the firm work like a partnership and share the profit and loss equally.
Services Offered by LPOs
LPOs provide the following services.
- Contract Lifecycle Management
- Litigation Support
- Conveyance Work
- Review and Research
- Paralegal Support Services
- Legal Documentation Drafting and Analysis
- Intellectual Property Services
Contract Lifecycle Management
Contract Lifecycle Management is a process in which a contract's Journey from drafting to its execution, this process involves many stages and procedures. Following are the steps that are essentially part of the contract lifecycle management:
- Initiation of request
- Drafting of the Contract
- Negotiation with the other party
- Approval from the other party
- The signing of contracts by both the parties
- Contract performance by the parties
- Renewal in case of valid performance by both parties
This process also includes the review and vetting of contracts. Contract review refers to checking the inconsistencies in the contract. The discrepancies include the spelling, grammar, or language of the contract. Contract vetting refers to the process of checking the legalities of a contract. In simple words, vetting focuses on checking if the contract is in accordance with the prescribed law, while review focuses on grammatical mistakes. The review and vetting of contracts require the lawyers to have extensive knowledge of the law and command of the language.
Litigation Support
Though foreign law firms cannot practice in India, litigation support includes scrutinising the litigation documents, such as complaints and petition appeals and abstracting the relevant information, such as docket number, case name, and date of hearing, as instructed by the client. Litigation support includes managing the appearances, drafting the petitions and managing the ADR proceedings for the clients. We at TAP GLOBAL have our expert panel of advocates who will take care of all the matters, from filing the case to finding a suitable/favourable outcome of that proceeding.
Conveyance Work
Property-based law firms all around the world carry out conveyance outsourcing work from India. The law firm would contact the offshore LPO to perform essential work such as title search, document review and scanning. That's why conveyance firms all around the world outsource this work to concentrate on all the important functions of running their business. We are a leading consultancy firm that provides conveyancing services all across the globe.
Review and Research: Legal
Offshore firms would also carry out services such as review and research. Legal research can be carried out by the offshore firm and provided to the onshore-based law firm. Legal databases such as Westlaw and Lexis Library assist with legal research. Our research and review services involve research in the fields of:
- Corporate Law Research
- Intellectual Property and allied services research
- International Civil and Criminal Research and Publications
- Legislative History Research Services
- Case Law research and reporting
- Legislative History Research
- New Client Research Service
- Patent Search Services
- Litigation Discovery Support
- Quantitative and Qualitative Legal Support
Our research services include making ready available reports, blogs and promotion of your legal entity. Our experienced team of legal researchers can provide a variety of functions, including writing detailed research reports/Blogs and legal marketing content for your business.
Legal Documentation support
The expert team at TAP GLOBAL will offer end-to-end support in managing all the drafting and documentation requirements for your company. Whether you are a budding business or a large corporate, you must have faced hassles in maintaining all the drafting ng and documentation support. Our experts will take care of all the drafting and documentation requirements per your business's requirements.
Paralegal Support
Paralegal services include all the management of legal databases and paperwork of the company. Legal Administrative assistants or paralegals are an important factor in the success of your business. From a professional outlook, businesses around the world have outsourced paralegal services. We provide competent and trained paralegal professionals to provide the best legal solutions.
Intellectual Property Services
IP services are booming across the globe, it refers to the intangible assets possessed by the business, such as patents, trademarks, copyrights and industrial design rights. From a literary work to a musical reference, our experts provide overall assistance in registering your trademark internationally. The service covered under IP are as follows;
- Trademark registration
- Copyright Registration
- Patent Registrations
- Design Registrations
- Trade Secret Registrations
We offer all these services across 30+ countries around the globe to our numerous clients worldwide.