I just finished reading yesterday’s copy of the Financial Times. They have an interesting feature article on legal & IP research moving to India.
First came the call centers, then the IT. Next stop legal research and Patent filings. The trend towards offshore outsourcing is now beginning to make its presence felt in the legal industry. The work being moved abroad includes not just basic administrative tasks but also more sophisticated and complex jobs traditionally carried out by trained lawyers in the country where the work originated. According to a study by Forrester, the research firm, almost 40,350 legal jobs in the US will be outsourced by 2015, amounting to nearly 8 per cent of the total employed in the field.
Interesting quote, “If you were doing patent research in the US, you would have a team of PhDs making $100,000 a year. In India we save the client two-thirds.”
Hildebrandt International, a US-based legal consultancy that recently formed a partnership with OfficeTiger, estimates spending for support services by the top 200 US law firms is about $20bn. “Assuming, very conservatively, an outsourcing potential of 10 per cent of services,” says Mr Altschuler, “the market opportunity is about $2bn.”
Well, they are a little short on Patent filings, but they are getting there. Read the whole story here.