It’s really necessary to discuss entire process of legal research outsourcing with your service provider firm. The service provider also must understand the working style as well as writing style of US lawyer. Since drafting legal research are premised on the service provider’s analysis of the issues. Any divergence between US Lawyer’s analysis and/or conclusions and the service provider’s may indicate a weakness in the case that merits further exploration. Additionally, if US Lawyer is working with an experienced legal researcher, US Lawyer will benefit from being open to his or her feedback on legal research project or writing style.
Although some legal research services providers insist that the hiring attorney to disclose the name of their client. But in my opinion it is not necessary or required to reveal the identity of the client. It may be possible for solos and small firm lawyers to be able to freely share all information when working on an outsourced project than the big law firms. Assuming that US lawyer will be sharing all relevant information about each case with the services provider and it may create the conflicts issues.
With the advancement in technology, US lawyers and law firms can easily share
the large number of files with service provider. Even the service provider can work online on the intranet of US law firm and there is no need to even download the files or documents. The cost of technology will be far outweighed by the financial benefits and US Law Firm can obtain by outsourcing legal research and writing projects.
The service provider should be willing and able to deliver exactly the type of legal research US Law Firm need. On one project, US Lawyer may only need the service provider to e-mail the relevant cases he or she has located; in another matter, US Law Firm may ask the provider to draft a summary judgment. The service provider should also be able to deliver results to US Law Firm in preferred format. In my opinion, the basic for preparing the legal research is the understanding the main legal issues that is required to be discussed and answered. The other concern is the writing style or format in which the legal opinion to be reproduced by the service provider. The basic premises must be explained to service provider in an absolute clarity and the service provider must be able to understand the basic issues.
