Forrester Research are predicting the outsourcing of 29,000 US legal jobs by the end of 2008 and as many as 79,000 by 2015. They've used the term 'knowledge process outsourcing' to describe India's move from call centres to more high skilled roles. Another research firm, ValueNotes has counted more than 100 legal process outsourcers in India and estimates the current value of outsourced work to be US$218M.
The impact on the local Legal Technology industry will probably be varied. The outsourcing trend is likely to move more non-client facing roles to cheaper locations. Positions such as DBAs, developers and network administrators, where English skills aren't essential could be (and have been) effectively outsourced.
On the other side outsourcing legal research, word processing and other legal work introduces new security risks and requires seamless IT systems between the law firm and the outsourcing firm. The Time article mentions outsourcers in India physically searching their lawyers as they exit, preventing them from using USB keys and even restricting the ability to print.
More here: http://www.time.com/
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