What is Legal Process Outsourcing?

Legal process outsourcing is often referred to as LPO. The work, itself, is a service that helps attorneys to get more work done, faster, and at less cost.

The main difference in legal process outsourcing when compared to, say, paralegal work, is location. Most of those providing LPO services are located in other countries where wages are less. This allows those providing the services to work for less. You can find plenty of legal process outsourcing companies in India, and in other countries that are located in that region.

While saving money, especially in hard economic times, is important, it is also important to understand how these companies work and what benefits and pitfalls they may expose the working lawyer to.

General Tasks

These companies can offer services as either back-office administrative or direct legal research operators. Depending on your need, you can choose from either.

Payment Structures For The Services

Depending on your needs, there are usually three pay structures available.

Per Unit/Per Page: Under this pricing plan, pay is calculated based on a number of pages per project. If the project is large, some companies prefer to bid on a “giga byte” basis. For smaller projects, the “per page” bid is often the more economical.

Hourly Bids: This type of pricing is good for projects that may have changes in specifications. This pricing model allows for more flexibility when it comes to redefining the scope and time schedule of the project.

Fixed Price: Many projects can be based on this model. This model allows the client to know, in advance, what the cost will be as well as how long the project work will take.

How to Pay for Legal Process Outsourcing Tasks:

For most companies offering legal outsourcing work, payment can be made by wire transfer, PayPal, or credit card.

Who Does the Work When You Hire an LPO Company?

Many of those who work in this field were educated in the various countries. They may be attorneys or they may be paralegals. In some cases, they are skilled workers in other areas such as billing or data entry.

As of this writing, the majority of those working in the legal process outsourcing field are located in India. However, this trend may be changing as more people in areas such as the Philippines and Asia begin to enter the field.

Advanced Legal Process Outsourcing Work

While many of those providing these services concentrate on performing routine tasks, other companies are offering more advanced work. These advanced tasks might include:

• Contract management
• Pre or Post-trial litigation support
• Advanced legal research, often in technical fields
• Patent Application Preparation and management
• Legal transcription services
• Various types of paralegal support

It is also important to assess the level of English grammar the service is able to produce, not so much in speaking, but rather in writing. This is often one of the most unpopular aspects to working with foreign legal process outsourcing companies. Some attorneys are finding that while they save money on the work tasks they often have to pay additional money to have the writing edited by writers.

A good way to avoid disappointment in this regard is to ask for samples of past work so you can assess the writing skills before you sign up with a particular legal process outsourcing firm or service. This one bit of research can save attorneys a lot of time and energy.

The Security Issues of LPO

It is important to work with companies that have on-site security for both documents and client privacy issues. This is usually accomplished through high-level technical measures.

Look for security measures as such:

• SSL Encryption – this is the highest industry standard currently available.
• Non-Disclosure Agreements.
• Document shredding policies or document return policy once the project is finished.
• Time and access control systems, as well as security cameras.

The above are a few of the issues you need to explore before signing up with a legal process outsourcing company.