Category Archives: Outsource Legal Research

Discusses the needs of lawyers to refer legal research and writing projects to contain costs.

Solo & Small Firm Challenges: Survey Results

Written on November 24, 2009 by Donna Seyle in Legal Research & Writing, Outsource Legal Research, Virtual Law Firm Practice, law practice management
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It’s no secret that 2009 has been a nightmare for lawyers. The disintegration of “big law” as the mainstay of our profession, lay-offs by law firms of every size, deferred hiring practices,  salary reductions, the rise of sole practitioners and  alternative fee structures have become routine as cash-strapped clients seek other means of resolving issues and demand legal fee reductions.  Just as our lifestyles may never return to their  pre-economic meltdown status, so the practice of law as we know it will never return, as changes made in the midst of necessity will remain as industry-practice standards.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. But change is difficult and never welcome. For lawyers, it also requires the need to forge new paths to a redefined meaning of a successful career. In a recent, albeit completely unscientific, survey asking lawyers about their experiences with what I knew to be current law practice challenges,  I received 62 anonymous responses. Their responses are consistent with generally accepted beliefs of  the effects of industry changes. They also reflect the absolute need to look to the use of new tools and resources to recreate a successful law practice. Here are the results:

  • 68.8% of the responders said they were forced to reduce their staff size as a result of the economic downturn
  • As a result of the reductions, they’ve experienced the following negative consequences:
    • Working longer hours, doing the work of several jobs
    • Had to take on more administrative work
    • Reduced ability to “have a life” outside of law
    • Spending significant time on business development
    • Anxiety resulting from lack of work
  • In the last 6 months, 62.5% of the responders had to work overtime more than 10 times to complete routine legal research and writing projects; 18.8% had to do so 7-10 times; 12.5% had to do so 1-3 times
  • As a result of the need to work overtime, they’ve experienced the following negative consequences:
    • Unable to keep up with routine preventive medical, dental & exercise appointments
    • Health has been neglected
    • Bored by work
    • Tired, lost weight, trouble sleeping, starting smoking, barely eat
    • Occasional exhaustion
    • Anxiety
    • Stay home all weekend to sleep and rest, rather than going out
    • Structure life around work
    • Less leisure time
  • In the last 6 months, 43.8% of responders had to reduce fees for legal research & writing time 1-3 times; 18.8% had to do so more than 10 times; 12.5% had to do so  4-6 times; 12.5% had to do so 7-10 times
  • As a result of reducing their fees, they’ve lost between 10 – 45% of income during that time
  • In the last 6 months, 81.3% of responders were asked by their clients  to reduce their fees
  • Regarding the use of law management software, 53.3% of responders use a combination of desktop and web-based applications; 26.7% use desktop only; 20% use no software at all; 13.3% use web-based only
  • Regarding retaining the services of freelance or contract lawyers, 68.8% said they have considered doing so
  • Following are the reasons why they have not done so:
    • Inability to vet material based on work needs, time sensitivity, research skills
    • Concerned about quality of work
    • Concerned about confidentiality, privacy and client retention
    • Too controlling

Just as our society must find ways of coping with our new economic realities, so too lawyers must look forward and embrace new ways of doing business in order to adapt. Simply cutting costs or making superficial adjustments will not sustain us, and those who do not grab hold of alternatives will not survive the crisis. The ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels project is one significant sign that remaking the legal profession is not just a passing fad.

What are those alternatives? Innovative use of technology and manpower is emerging as the primary path to future success.  The use of virtual law management systems, open source research sites, freelance and contract attorneys and virtual assistants offer opportunities to maintain and grow your practice while cutting costs and maintaining your health. Visit the ABA’s Economic Recovery Resources to gain more information on making your way through the revolution.

The past is gone. The future is now. Be here.


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Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to contact me for a free consultation.

Independent US Contract Lawyer Takes On Foreign LPO

Written on November 2, 2009 by Donna Seyle in Legal Research & Writing, Outsource Legal Research
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Below is a guest post written by one of my mentors, Lisa Solomon. Lisa is an accomplished freelance attorney and speaker whose practice has been featured in the National Law Journal (twice), the ABA Journal, JD Bliss and 50 Unique Legal Paths: How to Find the Right Job. In this post, Lisa responds to a post by an LPO, or Legal Process Outsourcing, director and addresses issues related to differences in the use of domestic freelance/contract attorneys and LPOs.

I’ve taken a fair amount of heat for pointing out that ABA Formal Op. 08-451, which states (with some important caveats) that foreign legal outsourcing is ethical, is actually good news for independent US-based contract lawyers because the same principles that allow firms to send legal work overseas also allow law students and graduates awaiting admission to do actual legal work when they’re working at firms, and allow lawyers to work as contract attorneys in jurisdictions in which they are not admitted. However, I’ve never taken a position on whether foreign legal process outsourcing is a good idea for hiring lawyers—solos and small firms who need the assistance of a qualified contract lawyer. Until now.

Yesterday, I saw a post in a LinkedIn group to which I belong, called Legal Research & Writing. Here’s the post, by Jagriti Mishra, the head of business development at an Indian LPO company called Draft N Craft:

Bursting the 7 Myths behind Legal Process Outsourcing.

This article attempts to address 7 common myths associated with the LPO industry

1> Whether outsourcing is synonym to compromise in quality?
2> Outsourcing is a compromise with confidentiality
3> It is unethical to outsource
4> By outsourcing, the vendor takes away outsourcer country’s jobs.
5> Indian LPO vendors compete with foreign law firms.
6> LPO vendors need malpractice insurance
7> Legal outsourcing starts instant savings and has no obligations

Please refer the link below:-

http://lpowatch.blogspot.com/

Curious, I clicked through to the post, where I was immediately struck by Mishra’s discussion of the first “myth” behind legal process outsourcing:

Myth 1> LPO stands for PLPO (Para-Legal Process Outsourcing) and/or there is a compromise in quality.

The legal process outsourcing industry is at nascent state but is growing both monetarily and intellectually. Although it is true that High cost, more routine, lower risk legal works are easy to outsource, it in no way circumscribes the potentials of legal process outsourcing. The PLPO perception is a backlog, as the Legal outsourcing industry begun with routine work. Suffice it is to mention that various important player like (SDD and Lexadigm) have prepared Briefs and Motions to be filed in US courts. Our attorneys are trained for Multi jurisdictional research and assist:-

  • US debt collection attorneys prepare Consumer Complaints, Briefs, and Motions for FDCPA, FCRA, FCBA and TILA violations.
  • Social security attorneys in filing FIT, research on GRIDS, De novo appeal before ALJ.
  • Bankruptcy attorney in intake form fill up and entering the information on Bankruptcy software.
  • Foreclosure attorney in preparing complaints, motion and briefs to help the homeless.
  • Contract review and management attorneys in contract Review including red lining and blue lining.
  • Merger and Acquisition attorney for due diligence.
  • For e-discovery solutions with cost advantage.

Quality is a term that takes new face with new situations. Clear guidelines, good teamwork and 100% quality check are the factors that coordinate in determining standards. It requires involvements from both the ends, keep a track of milestones and guidelines and the Outsourced service provider will ensure quality. We however, from our end add extra input to provide best quality deliverables. Had all vendors failed in providing quality this industry would have collapsed by now, the continuous growth reflects value.

Ironic, no?

Before other LPO companies get up in arms, I’ll concede that no doubt many of them have much better quality control than Draft N Craft (which I’d never heard of before reading Mr. Mishra’s post) appears to have. Nevertheless, the trainwreck of grammar and usage errors in Mr. Mishra’s post is a red flag. If the reading comprehension abilities of the foreign lawyers who work for a company like Draft N Craft is on par with the writing ability demonstrated in this post, any US lawyer who hires a company like this will have to do quite a bit of due diligence to ensure that the work product meets the standards set forth by the disciplinary authorities (to say nothing of the courts).

The other red flag in Mishra’s post is his claim that foreign LPO companies don’t have to carry malpractice insurance. Since at least 2003, experts have recommended that companies providing contract lawyering services carry malpractice (or errors and omissions) insurance. While it’s true that most malpractice policies should cover you for work performed on your behalf by a qualified contract lawyer, I’m unaware of any cases in which this has been challenged in the context of foreign legal outsourcing. I’d hate to be the test case.

Since I have never personally worked with a foreign LPO firm, I can’t comment on Mishra’s claims concerning security and confidentiality issues. And since I’m not an economist (heck, I didn’t even take Econ 101 in college), I won’t comment on Mishra’s analysis of the question of whether foreign outsourcing results in a net loss of jobs in the outsourcing country.

I agree with only two of Mishra’s arguments. An ethical foreign LPO company, like any ethical US-based contract lawyer, will not compete with you for your clients. The foreign LPO company (or a US-based contract lawyer who is not admitted in your jurisdiction) simply can’t represent your clients directly. And even a US-based contract lawyer who is providing services in a jurisdiction in which he or she is admitted to practice law won’t compete with you for your clients: simply put, we don’t want your clients—we want to work only for other lawyers.

I agree only to a point with Mishra’s analysis of the ethics decisions. Not a single bar association has determined that foreign legal outsourcing is per se unethical. However, Mishra gives short shrift to the caveats included in many of the opinions. You can find a more detailed discussion of the caveats in ABA Formal Op. 08-451 here.

The last thing that a busy solo or small firm lawyer wants to deal with when outsourcing substantive legal work is having to practically rewrite a brief to get it signature-ready. Sure, it costs more to outsource to a qualified, US-based independent contract lawyer than to send work overseas. But remember: you get what you pay for.

Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of  new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to find out how!

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Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to contact me for a free consultation.

A Tale of Two Happy Lawyers

Written on October 22, 2009 by Donna Seyle in Legal Research & Writing, Outsource Legal Research, law practice management
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Last March, I left my in-house position in the real estate development department of an international retail chain with nothing on the horizon.  I didn’t care. I was completely burnt out, and thrilled to learn I didn’t even need to leave my house to apply for unemployment (apparently, they are no more excited to see us than we are to see them, so they let us apply online). I couldn’t muster enthusiasm for going on job interviews, which was a good thing since there were no jobs to interview for. In my spare time, I started playing on Twitter (which is the subject of a whole other post) and was subjected to my children’s ridicule for it.

One day I was standing in a checkout line, and ran into an attorney (we’ll call him Brad) with whom I had co-tried a case several years ago. We both had reason to complain. His practice had dwindled to the point where he had to let go of both his associates, but found himself working constantly because he had no one else to rely on at deadline time. Now he had agreed to coach his son’s little league team, but had no idea how he was going to fit it in. I told him my tale of woe, and together we fumbled through our purchases feeling very sorry for ourselves, indeed.

About 10 days later, I got a panicked call from Brad at around 3 pm. He had just finished throwing together a responsive pleading, but had to run off to practice. He wanted to know if I would be interested in editing and finalizing it for his signature the next morning. Having shepparded two sons through little league myself, I couldn’t say no. So he emailed me the document, I fixed it up all nice and pretty, and returned it to him ready to go. Right there and then, the light bulb went on for both of us: he could delegate projects to me on an as-needed basis and I could start earning money in the comfort of my own home, as they say. He could be the proud coach of his son’s team without stressing or needing to cancel practices and know that his work would not suffer. And me? I had the beginnings of a whole new era in my professional life.

As I busily worked to put together my business model (using Twitter, by the way) Brad referred his buddy (we’ll call him Mark), a partner in mid-sized business firm in San Jose. One of Mark’s clients, whose profits were declining, had warned that unless Mark could alter their billable hour arrangement and bring down legal costs, he would need to pull his account and go elsewhere. When Mark analyzed his client’s billings, he realized there was no way he could offer the same services for the flat fee arrangement the client had requested. But Brad had told him about his arrangement with me, and that I charged substantially less than market hourly rate. Mark calculated that if he hired me to do the work for this client, which would free him and associates to work on higher-paying accounts, he could retain the client, still make some profit and save face. The deal was on.

The changes in law practice economics require creative approaches if you want to keep your practice thriving. We all know that big law is faltering, associates are being laid off and law clerks aren’t getting those offers anytime soon. Every sector of our industry is being forced to think far outside the box to continue to serve our clients. Freelance lawyers are playing a big part in enabling solo practitioners and law firms of all sizes to stay in the game.

In my previous post, Why Outsource Legal Research and Writing Projects to Freelance Lawyers?, I discussed the theory behind the emergence of freelance law practices. But as Amanda Mineer states, “. . .despite their growing numbers, many freelance contract lawyers must fight the perception that ‘they are just between jobs or don’t have it in them to be a ‘real’ lawyer.’” (See: Lawyer for Hire: Freelance Contractors Change the Marketplace by Hannah Hayes.) In fact, the opposite is true: freelance lawyers offer services that enable law practices to grow and change with our current social and economic climate.

Nor are we foreign lawyers who crank out work in the impersonal and unsecure environment envisioned by many attorneys when considering outsourcing contract work. We are attorneys right here in your country, state, or town, with fully-functioning law offices who provide specialized services that solve other attorneys’ logistical or financial dilemmas.

Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of  new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to find out how!
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Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to contact me for a free consultation.

Why Outsource Legal Research and Writing Projects to Freelance Lawyers?

Written on September 3, 2009 by Donna Seyle in Legal Research & Writing, Outsource Legal Research
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A day in a lawyer’s life: you start out fresh, with that research project at the top of the list. Then the phone starts to ring: calls from clients you can’t ignore because they won’t put up with it anymore (it’s a new era, remember?). Calls from potential clients you don’t want to turn away. Then there’s my personal favorite: a surprise TRO that requires your appearance in court for the afternoon session. You return to the office at 3:00 pm, distracted, hungry and ready for a double expresso instead of lunch.

And there it is: that research you were going to do first thing. Time to put some quality legal analysis to work. Except at this point, you can’t even remember how to log into your research software.

Why do lawyers outsource research, writing and document drafting projects to freelance lawyers? Time, money and workflow management. Lawyers, particularly solos and small firms, wear many hats. When you are busy responding to immediate concerns, the hardest hat to put on is that of legal analyst and document drafter. It takes concentration, focus and quiet.

Hiring an associate is an option, but a costly one. As Lisa Solomon, in her book chapter  “Outsourcing Legal Research and Writing Projects”, published in Effectively Staffing Your Law Firm (Jennifer J. Rose, Ed; ABA, 2009), states:

“Another benefit of outsourcing legal research and writing on an as-needed basis is cost. Hiring an associate requires a significant investment in both time and money.  When you outsource legal research and writing projects, you pay only for the time it takes to complete the project, but when you hire an employee, you immediately add to your fixed expenses. . .Your practice may be busy enough to benefit from project-based outsourcing, but not busy enough to support another employee. Outsourcing is a wise use of your firm’s resources that can increase profitability.”

Ms. Solomon also notes that because the freelance attorney is free to concentrate on the project without interruption, it is often completed more quickly. Additionally, the ABA has issued a formal opinion that a lawyer is permitted to charge more than the cost of the outsourced work, so long as the charges are reasonable. All jurisdictions that have addressed the issue  are in accord with the ABA opinion, except Maryland and Texas.

And the best part: when you return to your office at 3:00 pm, you can actually take some time to eat a decent lunch rather than resort to your caffeine cocktail. Better for your health, your attitude and your dinner date!

Have questions or concerns regarding how to find a competent freelance lawyer, what types of projects to outsource, or other ethical issues? Please include them in your comments below and I will be happy to respond.

Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of  new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to find out how!

Tags: , , , ,
Lawyers: do you have time and resource management dilemmas that require creative solutions? Freelance attorneys and advanced technology are here to help. Take advantage of new and exciting ways to have both a successful law practice and a great lifestyle! Click here to contact me for a free consultation.