Legal Process Outsourcing to the Philippines

Whether you’re operating in a law firm environment or as an alternative legal services provider, only those who provide truly client-centered services will survive into the next decade. “Legal buyers – not firms – are driving industry change,”⁴ says legal business consultant Mark A. Cohen.

How are they doing that? By being strategic about how they spend their money – separating legal practice from legal services, using data, and taking a broader perspective when it comes to utilizing people with process, project management, technological, business, and other necessary skills.

They also expect that kind of cost-effectiveness from their legal service providers. While clients don’t mind paying for high value legal advice, they don’t want to pay top dollar for the process work. “Low cost centers are a major factor in law firms wanting to win new clients and retain current ones,” Ms Suttie explains. “It has become a client expectation that a firm will have a low cost center – either on-shore or offshore – operating as a back office for commodity work.”

And that’s exactly what many firms have done, disaggregating services, taking components such as finance, IT, compliance and process-based legal tasks to offshore locations. Offshoring level services allows them to lower the cost of doing business, maintain profit margins in an increasingly competitive market, and deliver on clients’ expectations.

Why is the legal services industry suited to offshoring?

Fortunately for legal service providers, it’s an industry that’s particularly well suited to offshoring, because:

• Although the rapid pace of change has created a somewhat unique set of circumstances, legal process outsourcing (LPO) is not new as a concept. In fact the legal sector has been outsourcing tasks like document review and patent searches for over half a century. The practice is culturally accepted and supported by peak professional organizations.
• While technology isn’t the answer on its own, it can certainly facilitate implementation of a wide range of strategies, including offshoring. Most legal service providers are already utilizing legal sector software, document automation, and secure communication infrastructure that now make the physical location of certain teams largely irrelevant.
• Successful offshore providers necessarily prioritize cybersecurity and privacy measures as part of their business model, further minimizing your risk of data breach.
• A lot of the work can be done at any time – not just in business hours (although a good provider will give you access to people who can work your hours if you want).

Legal proess outsourcing to the Philippines just makes good business sense.

Frequently offshored legal services roles

Some of the more frequently offshored legal services roles include:

• Legal Transcriptionist
• Paralegal
• Legal Secretary
• Lawyer (Corporate, CPA, General Practitioner)
• Legal Assistant
• Liaison Officer.

Reference:
1 ALPMA. A Survival Guide for Legal Practice Managers
2 ALM Media Properties, LLC. Law Firm Mergers and the Economic Outlook for 2019. 17 Apr. 2019
3 Forbes. New Business Models- Not Technology- Will Transform the Legal Industry. 8 Nov. 2018
4 Forbes. New Business Models- Not Technology- Will Transform the Legal Industry. 8 Nov. 2018