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Outsourcing to India Grows, Despite Concerns
In spite of some questions over the ethics of outsourcing legal work to India, the practice continues -- most recently garnering coverage in this piece in Time. Among other things, the article points out that new e-discovery rules are giving law firms incentive to outsource to India -- where review of a document can cost around $1 per page versus $7 to $10 in the U.S. The article also mentions one lawyer, Mark Alexander, a Dallas attorney, who has outsourced research of certain issues, like securities fraud or breach of contract, to India for $60 an hour, thus sparing his clients his $395/hr fee.
Outsourcing large-scale document review to India makes sense as a way to save costs. But for smaller projects, I don't see the benefit of going oversees. I've readily found lawyers through Craigslist or personal referrals who will perform legal research for between $50 and $75 an hour. I can even find contract lawyers through a temp agency at that rate. In this situation, it doesn't make sense to go offshore when the same service for the same price or less is available in the United States.
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on April 4, 2008 at 05:05 PM | Permalink
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