Category Archives: Legal Outsourcing India

U.S. Rules and Regulations Applicable to Outsourcing

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin| 1 Comment

Many functions within the relationship of a corporation and outsourcing firm fall directly or indirectly under the governance of U.S. laws. For example, several of the largest U.S. banks outsource their IT systems, data processing, financial research, data storage, or customer transactions to U.S. and foreign-based BPOs. In doing so, some of the rules and guidelines applicable to financial outsourcing include NASD NTM 05-48, The Federal Privacy Rule and the SafeGuards Rule of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and outsourcing rules defined by Federal Financial Examinations Council (FFIEC).

When U.S. public companies outsource accounts receivable, accounts payable, or fixed-asset accounting to a BPO, compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley is still required as compliance is non-delegable. By extension of the outsourcing relationship, both the public company and the BPO work within the governance and compliance of these regulatory requirements.  Also, when U.S. healthcare and insurance companies outsource medical records, claims processing, and patient billing information, patient information is protected under the parameters of the HIPAA Privacy Rule even if the patient information is maintained by an offshore BPO.

Rules of Legal Outsourcing (LPO)

Law firms and corporate legal departments typically employ some form of outsourcing within their functions. Services which are not typically considered the practice of law, i.e. document review, litigation support, eDiscovery, etc., are, technically, outsourcing relationships when they are performed by an outside party. The current rules applicable to legal outsourcing were defined by ABA Formal Opinion 08-451. The guidelines include the allowance of non-lawyers to perform certain types of legal work, provided non-lawyers are not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law and they are supervised by lawyers. When an eDiscovery provider is retained by a firm or in-house counsel, there are no restrictions on who may or may not perform culling, searching, and hosting of privileged documents. When paper documents are converted to electronic files by a litigation support company, confidentiality and security requirements exist for personnel handling the documents and the physical dwelling in which the documents are stored. When a non-lawyer in the U.S. or abroad is utilized to review documents for law firm retained by a client, there are no licensing requirements preventing the individual from doing so provided the non-lawyer, again, is working under the supervision of a lawyer. Overall, the combination of the Rules of Professional Conduct sworn to by counsel, counsel’s oversight of its legal outsourcing providers, and the compliance of ABA Opinion 08-451 by legal outsourcing providers appears to be cohesive and effective.  Similar to U.S. privacy and confidentiality rules which extend to BPO practices, uniform standards and guidelines should continue to apply to legal outsourcing whether the work is performed in New York or New Delhi. Industry-wide compliance of confidentiality, security, prevention of conflicts, and avoiding the unauthorized practice of law will further substantiate the role of legal outsourcing and eliminate apprehension in its adoption as a standard practice for corporations and law firms. A Fortune 500 company or AmLaw 200 firm seeking to gain value through process improvements and cost reductions from legal outsourcing should be able to so; provided such work is done under their supervision and within the parameters of ABA Formal Opinion 08-451 or similar guidelines.

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Title Search Property Due Diligence Outsourcing India

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

A title search is the resulting document of ownership or lien research of a real estate. A researcher will retrieve the records on a property, such as transfers, liens, judgments, and other recorded data. All the results will be compiled into a
report, called a title search and report can be used to understand the status of the property, such as if there are liens against the property, or ownership status.   The search report will have title search abstract, not just a property deed. A full property title searches  include : Mortgages, Property liens, Tax liens, Contractor liens, Tax certificates, Legal and vesting document.

Many of our clients are investors, looking at properties for purchase. The prospective buyers wish to determine the status of any liens that may be on the property and understand the ownership of a property before they make an offer on it to the seller or broker. Sometimes, knowing the amount of mortgages on a property, or if there are financial problems can help with the negotiations. The title searches may indicate comparable sales data, to see what other properties in
the area have sold for. In addition, some clients may require a title search as part of a family event, such as divorce, estate or otherwise. Many homeowners are now checking their own homes title status on a regular basis, to make sure no liens are attaching to the property. A lien search for the property is most important for title search, and it should list all liens recorded against the current owner of the property. This includes both mortgage liens, and all non-voluntary liens such as tax liens, contractor liens, etc.   The title searches take between one to four days (Not including weekends).

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E-Discovery Cost

Posted on November 18, 2011 by admin| 1 Comment

E-discovery costs can be reduced by making sensible strategic discovery decisions on the very first day the matter comes in and then leveraging technology to improve efficiencies. It is regarding reliable technical options one can implement to improve efficiencies and reduce the cost.

Removing the duplicates across custodians so that only one copy of each document or email is reviewed for responsiveness, confidentiality, or privilege reduces the volume.

Even further saving can be realized by using technology to present all the emails in a conversation or thread to reviewers at the same time. Most people set up their email so that when they reply to or forward an email, the content of that earlier email is displayed at the bottom of the reply.   Having all of the related emails together at the time of review allows reviewers to read them more efficiently and make consistent, informed decisions.

The first reply could be either ignored completely or just cursorily examined to determine if for some reason the last email in the thread did not accurately reflect the contents of the earlier emails. Some email threading systems will perform that check. Evaluating the emails collectively provides extensive savings in the time required to complete the review and shows better results. The reviewing just the last email would cut the work and the review bill dramatically.

The survey of leading electronic discovery providers conducted by the E-Discovery Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit research organization, showed that consolidating emails by threads saved on average 36 percent beyond the savings achieved by deduping. (See “Report of Kershaw-Howie Survey of E-Discovery Providers Pertaining to Threading.”)

It is intreresting to note that not only does email threading reduce cost and speed processing, it also improves the quality of the review decisions, particularly privilege decisions. One of the potential dangers of email is that a recipient can forward otherwise privileged content to someone whose receipt of it could result in a waiver. It is easier to spot with email threading. Furthermore, grouping emails in threads helps assure that all of them are accorded the same treatment if warranted.

Many courts in USA require that a party listing an email as privileged make a privilege log entry for that email plus any of the earlier emails whose contents were included within that email. for better clarity if the reply to the initial reply was listed on the privilege log, there would have to be three entries: one for that email itself, one for the first reply, and another entry for the initiating email, because both the initiating and the first reply emails were included within that email. Having the technology to group emails by threads could reduce the complexity and burden of preparing such logs. (Of course, the best privilege log solution is to obtain a FRE 502 stipulation and protective order incorporating privilege logging by subject matter rather than by item at the very outset of the case.

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E-Discovery Creates Exciting New Opportunities

Posted on November 14, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

You know about e-discovery and the changes it has brought to every practice specialty imaginable. Electronic discovery how people and businesses conduct themselves, what they write in an e-mail, say in a voicemail or put in a blog or website has changed the face of the legal field. This also means that the number and type of assignments for paralegals has increased and changed, particularly in the discovery and risk management arenas.  A brand new position, the e-discovery manager, has emerged. This person’s first responsibility is to reduce costs by managing vendor selection. E-discovery managers also enable organizations to proactively prepare for litigation. A screw up in e-discovery, such as removing metadata during document productions, can result in sanctions or a court issued adverse inference. Managers also create a consistent process for e-discovery projects that includes data collection, processing and review.

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Factors affecting the Outsourcing Market India

Posted on November 14, 2011 by admin| 1 Comment

Faced with a slow economic recovery IT leaders will continue to outsource in order to facilitate cost-savings. The market will also experience a surge in smaller IT service deals from first-time buyers.  Cloud sourcing which has often been predicted as the death of outsourcing, will soon merge with the existing outsourcing market and provide better opportunities for the entire industry. Infrastructures supported by cloud resources and based on SOA principles will encourage smaller outsourcing providers, which will in turn energize the outsourcing market by heightening competition and lowering prices. Industry experts predict the emergence of a Latin America outsourcing boom especially in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru. Service providers will also continue to shift their delivery centers to markets such as China, Philippines and Egypt, since these countries represent big markets with big demand for transformational and discretionary spend activity.  More cross-border partnerships are expected in the future as cash-rich provider firms from developing nations are more than willing to invest into mid-market domestic provider firms in the US. The outsourcing industry will witness mergers between major Indian IT service providers and U.S.-based outsourcers, with the Indian companies on the buying end. Industry experts have predicted the stabilization of pricing structures in the coming years, as vendors will have to woo clients with performance rather than a low bids. With the huge pressure to keep costs down, service providers will rely more heavily on mass automation tools that will create additional opportunities and reduce the staff necessary to support critical business applications. The outsourcing industry will experience more companies coming up with comprehensive strategic plans that combine multiple processes in their outsourcing initiatives rather than outsourcing single processes or functions on a stand-alone basis. Industry experts also predict the emergence of a retail model in the outsourcing industry where service providers will be categorized into large operations offering reduced costs and middle- and lower-sized providers providing more customized service. IAOP’s Global Outsourcing data reported a 10% growth in the revenue of outsourcing service providers in the year 2010. This growth is expected to continue in the coming years. The future will experience an increase in multi-sourcing arrangements caused by socio-economic pressures on leading countries and economic incentives provided by local and federal government to encourage employment.

India’s role in the outsourcing industry

Industry experts have predicted that despite increasing competition from other offshore outsourcing destinations, Indian outsourcing firms will still occupy the headlines as the world leader of outsourcing in the coming years. This is because its advantages over other regions still remain distinct. However, the Indian outsourcing industry will experience a significant change in the near future, with companies shifting to knowledge-intensive and value-added services that call for a new way of functioning. Unlike in the past, it is no longer labor or cost arbitrage that drives the domestic BPO market. The new verticals that make India stand out in the global outsourcing market are the need to scale rapidly, greater focus on core competencies, enhanced productivity, heightened competition and the reduced time to market ratio. Outsourcing service providers are now adding the knowledge component into the mix in an attempt to deliver greater value to their customers overseas.

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