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Businesses must realize that they can adapt and adopt efficient ways to solve problems when conducting daily operations. They need to first identify problems and then come up with innovative solutions to be successful. But they have to step up and be proactive. Businesses have to be prepared to deal with problems even before they develop. Outsourcing can be considered a form of strategy where problems are managed before they arise simply by streamlining business processes and value addition.
Hiring third-party service providers to handle responsibilities and operations associated with specific business functions is known as outsourcing. Big organizations usually outsource peripheral, non-core but routine business functions to reap benefits such as saving time, workforce and cost and adding value to the business. Debates about what method of outsourcing to use may be common, but it eventually comes down to what an organization needs. Different methods of outsourcing follow the same principle, but they’re not similar to one another. They can all add value to an organization—and that value isn’t just money. Legal research may not be a primary process, but like research and development (R&D), it’s pivotal for an organization’s success.
Knowledge processing is a continuous process of creating and disseminating information. Legal outsourcing is considered a subset of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) as it involves outsourcing information-driven legal knowledge. As a result of the global paradigm shift that the legal industry has witnessed in recent years, the delivery model of legal services has changed. The new model is what we know as Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) and it involves collaborating with external vendors to handle legal processes. The work of legal professionals such as lawyers and paralegals is transferred to these contracted, third-party vendors who can be from the same or different country.
Read on to find out the meaning of LPO, the types of services it offers, its advantages and some examples.
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Legal Process Outsourcing Meaning
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Types Of LPO Services
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Advantages Of Legal Process Outsourcing
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LPO Examples
Legal Process Outsourcing Meaning
Legal Process Outsourcing refers to outsourcing legal functions or processes to an external, third-party service provider. It’s a significant measure for saving costs and knowledge sharing where discrete legal services are transferred from internal departments to external firms, paraprofessionals or local lawyers. The expertise and strengths of skilled professionals can be leveraged to complete routine, mundane tasks, allowing organizations to bring in new businesses and offer top service and maximum value to customers. It’s essential to understand LPO meaning to utilize its strengths and reap profits from practicing law.
The tremendous growth in legal outsourcing can be attributed to the massive advantages it holds in letting businesses strengthen their in-house capabilities and overcome challenges associated with other modes of delivering legal services. It’s one of the fastest-growing businesses globally and continues to hold massive potential for the coming years, with its popularity growing among corporate legal departments and law firms with each passing day.
Types Of LPO Services
Agency services – work that requires a physical presence in courts and negotiations – are all included in LPO services. Review, writing, drafting and research are all part of legal services. Here are the different types of LPO services offered by firms worldwide:
- Secretarial services, including presentations
- Drafting and reviewing contracts
- Legal publishing services
- Market and business research
- Reviewing documents, including e-discovery
- Form completion and information population like tax forms
- Administrative services like billing and accounting
- Litigation support
In recent years, more than $650 billion have been spent on legal services. With demand for legal services increasing, organizations must look toward LPO to check costs and maintain profit. They can complete assigned tasks and handle large volumes of legal data within fixed timelines and set parameters. Here are a few types of legal service providers:
- Third-party niche service providers
- Third-party multi-service providers
- Legal and audit firm captive centers
- Captive centers for corporate legal departments
This is a promising industry with exceptionally high-end opportunities and a wide variety of work for all levels of expertise.
Advantages Of Legal Process Outsourcing
Data and information are available both internally and externally for managers. Using this data and information is the most effective way to deal with competitive challenges and make sustainable strategic decisions. Let’s look at some of the advantages of legal outsourcing:
Cost-Effectiveness
Legal Process Outsourcing is highly cost-effective, especially if the work is outsourced to countries like India, where the labor cost is significantly lower than the United States. Also, organizations don’t need to bear additional operational costs to set up infrastructures and train individuals. They can focus on internal, primary processes while external experts deal with legal matters.
Access To New Technology
LPO means accessing new technologies before others and using them for process advances. They offer the latest technology and other accessibility tools to protect sensitive client documents. In-house lawyers can also benefit because they get access to the latest research tools when collaborating with reputed third-party vendors.
Access To Talent
Organizations get the opportunity to work with experts from different parts of the world. These are highly skilled and knowledgeable professionals who can deal with unfamiliar circumstances. They can prevent undesired outcomes from impacting the business and deliver quality results. Working with outside talent can also minimize the in-house workload and allow businesses to fill internal competency gaps.
Lesser Turnaround Time
With LPO, businesses can expand internal bandwidth and reduce turnaround time when dealing with pressing legal matters. Combining offshore and onshore teams allows organizations to complete projects in much less time.
24X7 Services
Hiring vendors from different time zones enables organizations to leverage round-the-clock benefits by using the time difference and minimizing delivery time.
More Flexibility
Businesses have the flexibility to hire new talent or pause contracts, depending on the need. Working with external talent along with internal professionals can help efficiently respond to increased workload and client demands. Flexible staffing lets organizations scale up and down, reduce overheads and stay within budget.
Learning Opportunities And Exposure
LPO offers great exposure and learning opportunities to employees. They get to work with skilled, foreign instructors who introduce them to great work cultures and advanced industry software.
Project Control
With Legal Process Outsourcing, organizations can set the scope of projects, the maximum timeframe for completing these projects and the budget as per requirements.
Focus On Core Business Functions
Delegating non-core legal operations to external vendors frees up the time and internal resources necessary for building the core processes of an organization.
Business Innovation And Transformation
LPO allows organizations to innovate and transform their businesses with changing technologies and trends. This only adds to their advantages in the legal industry.
In highly competitive markets, managers have to quickly shift their organization’s business to a model that handles collaborations regularly and effectively. They should look for high-quality vendors who can drive their business strategies through analytics.
LPO Examples
Here are some organizations specializing in legal processes:
Pangea3
Pangea3 is a Legal Process Outsourcing organization formed in 2004. In 2010, they became a part of Thomson Reuters. They have their headquarters in New York and operations in Dallas, Mumbai and Delhi. Pangea3 caters to corporate transactional work, IP and governance, litigation support and compliance and risk management.
Datascribe LPO
Datascribe LPO is an ISO:9001 and ISO:27001 certified organization with offices in India, Canada and USA. It takes care of legal research, litigation support, legal/corporate services, e-discovery services, depositions, drafting, immigration support services and secretarial services, among many others. It’s also a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) certified business and provides medico-legal services.
Cobra Legal Solutions, LLC
Cobra Legal is a proven player in document management and review for antitrust, litigation, arbitration, legal research, contract management and e-discovery support. They partner with both international and domestic clients. Some of their renowned clients include CaseCentral, Rainmaker and Planet Data.
Today, it’s more important than ever to outsource all non-core business activities and focus on core business areas of growth. Executives and high-level managers must identify third-party vendors with strong reputations and backgrounds in outsourcing, especially when dealing with legal matters. Managers of smaller organizations should especially focus on LPO meaning so that they can enter into collaborations. They can save resources and time otherwise consumed by time-draining caseloads and direct them toward focusing on each client equally.
Harappa’s Rise In An Organization program nurtures Thrive Skills and sets you up for collaborations like outsourcing activities. It’s designed to teach you to come up with and execute the best possible strategies. Learn to deal with challenges and cultivate a growth mindset from the BLAST framework. With the Flywheel Effect, you can develop the consistency to complete tasks and generate great outcomes efficiently. Learn the Trust Equation, Performance Equation and the Six Strategies to Manage Relationships and be confident to make quick financial decisions while managing resources better and driving value for your organization.
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Explore Harappa Diaries to learn more about topics such as What Is Business Process Outsourcing, Example Of KPO, Porter’s Value Chain Model and Meaning of Business Process Management to classify problems and solve them efficiently.
