Outsourcing may currently be at the stage of "mostly talk, little action"—or,
what is my theory, those who are doing it aren’t talking—and in
the absence of more real-world empirical experience, sometimes
the best alternative while we’re in something of a holding pattern is
a solid, comprehensive overview of the plusses and minuses, the benefits
and costs, and a realistic discussion of what may and may not work going
forward.
Serendipitously, AsiaLaw has just provided such a well-researched piece.
Consonant with my impression that outsourcing has yet to gain serious
traction is a survey conducted by Washington’s American Corporate Counsel
Association last year which found that only 1.8% of GC’s surveyed were
actually doing it, although 8% expressed some level of interest. Even
Ram Vasudevan, CEO of Mumbai-based QuisLex (a firm which very much wants
to be on the providing end of outsourcing) admits that "it’s very much
in the early stages." Why so? A variety of reasons:
- Neil Hirshman, a Kirkland & Ellis partner in Chicago who specializes
in advises clients contemplating outsourcing, says that uncertainty
surrounding issues such as maintaining attorney-client privilege are
still unresolved, and that lack of clarity can scare people off. Similarly,
my friend Ron Friedman just pointed
out that the DC Bar has enacted an antediluvian rule requiring
temp and contract attorneys to be members of the DC Bar—which
certainly knocks Mumbai into a cocked hat. - Firms such as HSBC and Intel remain to be convinced that
the overseas attorneys can truly understand the client’s business. Likewise
for Qantas, whose GC observes that aviation law tends to be highly
specialized and that effective counseling requires a profound understanding
of the airline’s strategic vision, something that’s neither desirable
nor practical to school a distant, part-time lawyer in. - If one assumes that offshoring must start at the bottom end of the
food chain, that raises the question whether there’s all that much
money to be saved. Another friend, Rob Hyndman, sees it "largely
as an issue of substituting offshore for domestic clerical work"—implicitly
questioning whether the startup costs of launching an offshore operation
would be recovered quickly, or at all. - Finally, there’s the perspective from the other end of the fiber-optic
line: Highly qualified Indian lawyers might not want to do work
suitable for paralegals or junior associates. Why wouldn’t they
prefer to work on more complex domestic (Indian) matters?
I of course have my own take on "where the ceiling is placed for Indian
lawyers working with corporate America," but you’ll have to read to the
end of the article to find out what I had to say.
