Strategic Legal Technology

Legal process outsourcing (LPO) has been in the news a lot in the last few months. And there have been some good blog posts too. Here’s a listing. 

For a November 9th presentation on Legal Process Outsourcing: Opportunities and Challenges to the Palo Alto Area Bar Association (PDF of program) I assembled a list of recent legal press LPO coverage. I was surprised at the extent and nature of the coverage. That list appears at the end of this post.

I also want to call out a few blog posts of interest:

• Wearing my day job hat at Integreon, I posted today Law Firms Differentiate in a New Era at the Integreon blog. I suggest that law firms will follow different strategies in the future (picking up on Law Firm Business Models: A New Series at Adam Smith, Esq.) and that going public on initiatives brings benefit, illustrating with of examples two UK firms that recently publicized their legal outsourcing.
• Matthew Sullivan of RedBridge Strategy explains at his blog in Working with LPO Vendors: Relationship or Transaction? the pros and cons of forming a long term relationship with an outsourcing vendor. This is a good blog to read.
• Michael D. Bell of Fronterion, Inc. writes in his blog post Quantity vs. Quality that lawyers need to focus on quality and other factors in outsourcing as much as on cost savings. Another good blog.
• My colleague Matthew Bank’s writes in What’s in a Name? “Legal” + “Process” + “Outsourcing” that LPO means more than offshore, it’s all about process and outsourcing to any destination.

Legal Outsourcing in the News - Recent Articles, Jun - Oct 2009

• Legal process outsourcing is ‘here to stay’ (Law Society Gazette, October)
• “Out, out damn source” (The Lawyer, October)
• Xerox GC says LPO is a $4bil industry (Rees Morrison blog post, citing book, October)
• “Simmons goes live with outsourcing project” (The Lawyer, October)
• Gibson Dunn acknowledges going offshore for doc review (Denver Post, October)
• “Slaughters in talks over outsourcing plans” (The Lawyer, October)
• “Demystifying Outsourcing for Corporate Counsel” (The Legal Intelligencer, September)
• “Offshoring legal work.. at a lower cost requires even more stringent management, but the savings seen could prove increasingly persuasive..” (Managing Partner, September)
• “Will Increased Compliance Burdens Lead to Legal Process Outsourcing?” (NLJ, August)
• “ Offshoring firms: the day has come” (The Lawyers Weekly (Canada), August)
• “Aussie firms embrace LPO” (Lawyers Weekly (Australia), July)
• GC attitudes to LPO changing gradually (Int’l Bar Assoc article )
• Rio Tinto hires team of lawyers in India (Times Online, June)