Emergence of Legal Services Outsourcing

Legal Process Outsourcing industry is going through interesting times. An industry that has been awaiting a boom for many years seems to be finally going mainstream. The recent financial crisis has opened up substantial opportunities for the LPO industry by necessitating corporates to reassess their expensive in-house counsel and by driving downward pressure on law firms to reduce their cost and offer competitive pricing for routine work. As a result both the corporate legal divisions and law firms are embracing legal process outsourcing in order to reduce cost and to direct their resources towards strategic matters. Interestingly, the current business climate is obliging companies to operate their legal divi-sion as a contributing business and not merely focusing on cost reduction. Consequently, companies are moving towards outsourcing higher-end judgment intensive work in addi-tion to time intensive transactional functions. This new breed of services entering the out-sourcing spectrum has resulted in the emergence of a concept referred to as Legal Ser-vices Outsourcing (LSO).