Outsourcing Legal Work to India: Now, or Never?

Outsourcing may currently be at the stage of "mostly talk, little action"—or, what is my theory, those who are doing it aren't talking—and in the absence of more real-world empirical experience, sometimes the best alternative while we're in something of a holding pattern is a solid, comprehensive overview of the plusses and minuses, the benefits and costs, and a realistic discussion of what may and may not work going forward.

Serendipitously, AsiaLaw has just provided such a well-researched piece. 

Consonant with my impression that outsourcing has yet to gain serious traction is a survey conducted by Washington's American Corporate Counsel Association last year which found that only 1.8% of GC's surveyed were actually doing it, although 8% expressed some level of interest.  Even Ram Vasudevan, CEO of Mumbai-based QuisLex (a firm which very much wants to be on the providing end of outsourcing) admits that "it's very much in the early stages."  Why so?  A variety of reasons:

• Neil Hirshman, a Kirkland & Ellis partner in Chicago who specializes in advises clients contemplating outsourcing, says that uncertainty surrounding issues such as maintaining attorney-client privilege are still unresolved, and that lack of clarity can scare people off.  Similarly, my friend Ron Friedman just pointed out that the DC Bar has enacted an antediluvian rule requiring temp and contract attorneys to be members of the DC Bar—which certainly knocks Mumbai into a cocked hat.
• Firms such as HSBC and Intel remain to be convinced that the overseas attorneys can truly understand the client's business.  Likewise for Qantas, whose GC observes that aviation law tends to be highly specialized and that effective counseling requires a profound understanding of the airline's strategic vision, something that's neither desirable nor practical to school a distant, part-time lawyer in.
• If one assumes that offshoring must start at the bottom end of the food chain, that raises the question whether there's all that much money to be saved.  Another friend, Rob Hyndman, sees it "largely as an issue of substituting offshore for domestic clerical work"—implicitly questioning whether the startup costs of launching an offshore operation would be recovered quickly, or at all.
• Finally, there's the perspective from the other end of the fiber-optic line:  Highly qualified Indian lawyers might not want to do work suitable for paralegals or junior associates.  Why wouldn't they prefer to work on more complex domestic (Indian) matters?

I of course have my own take on "where the ceiling is placed for Indian lawyers working with corporate America," but you'll have to read to the end of the article to find out what I had to say.