What is the USP of LawScribe vis-a-vis other players in this sector?

LawScribe is one of the very few Legal Process Outsourcing companies owned and operated by fully qualified US and UK attorneys. We have a solid physical presence in the US as well as in India. Reputed agencies like Prism Legal Consulting, ValueNotes and LPO Network have testified that there are more than 100 companies offering offshore legal support services to US and UK law firms and corporations. But we stand out with our dual presence in the US as well as in India. As against this, a vast majority of the players in the LPO industry only have an Indian base for their operations.

Even those players having presence in the US and India, do not employ attorneys of US and UK origin in senior managerial positions as we do.

Besides the distinct physical presence in US locations of Los Angeles and New York, LawScribe is owned and operated by fully qualified US and UK attorneys. I think this is our main USP.

What is that critical edge you enjoy over others in this LPO sector?

I think that edge goes to the successful processes we have developed for our services to provide timely, quality work to our clients. As early movers in this space and with a few years of experience behind us, LawScribe has attained that critical ability to deliver quality services in the requisite scale needed for the US and UK legal markets.

Can you give an idea about the services offered by your firm?

Our offshore services include back-office functions, litigation/document support, corporate/transactional support as well as substantive, higher value legal services in the area of intellectual property, including patent analytics and drafting.

Can you give an outline of Lawscribe’s growth since its inception?

LawScribe was formed in 2004, when there were only a handful of companies in the legal outsourcing space. Over the last three and half years, we have been growing fast, accumulating domain expertise. We have learned over time how to operate a business in India, in the most efficient manner, while being in full control of the challenges including attrition, security, confidentiality, employee retention and management.

Our client base now consists of around 70 law firms, corporate and legal organisation clients. We currently employ 85 full time employees and I expect to hit the hundred mark by the end of the year.

What kind of savings can a client expect from this LPO option?

The savings can be in the range of 30 to 70 percent. For high value, knowledge based work the savings can still be higher.

Looking at the LPO sector, from an aspirant’s point of view, can you tell us what exactly is the key to success in this field?

The key is to understand your client’s expectations fully and deliver them in a safe and secure environment. This also includes setting realistic expectations for your client as well.

Tell me something about your clients. Are you dependent more on law firms or corporations?

The majority of our clients are law firms. This has more to do with my background of working as an attorney with a large international law firm. Naturally, when I started this business, the focus shifted to law firms because that is where I saw the need to reduce overheads. It was imperative for large law firms to offer creative solutions for their clients. In the case of smaller firms too, I could foresee huge opportunities from cost-reduction through offshoring to allow them to compete with larger firms. Though our clients are predominantly law firms, we are also witnessing growth in our corporate client-base. We have also developed a substantial client-base among legal organisations.

Can you give an idea of the kind of projects you generally handle?

We provide full service support for projects of all sizes including the following types of projects; large-scale coding and indexing; large-scale document review; patent drafting, searching, and analytics; trademark searching and filing; copyright filing; estate planning projects; digital transcription and word processing; legal research, analysis, and drafting; deposition and medical record review and summaries; corporate due diligence; and contract drafting.

How do you attract the best professionals for your firm?

LawScribe has a very rigorous hiring and training process. We receive a plethora of job applications through job portals, our website, consultants, candidate referrals and our human resource department. To the potential candidate we administer a series of stringent tests. Successful candidates passing through these tests in India are then progressed through to a final round of assessments and interviews with our US team.

Background and conflicts checks are then performed for any selected candidates. We always give preference to lawyers and engineers from the top-notch institutions in India.

The training programme varies and depends more on the process for which the candidate is hired. For example, the lawyers undergo an intense month-long training programme conducted by a US lawyer. This training covers the background information on the US legal system and then specifics on the area of law in which the employee will be working such as litigation training for legal research, drafting and document review.

It seems that the LPO sector is predominantly US-centric. Is it that the European corporations and law firms are not geared to LPOs the way American firms and companies are?

It is a fact that the US is responsible for 75 percent of all the revenue generated by LPOs. Independent research group ValueNotes in its survey comments on this. The survey also reveals that the UK market is the second largest market generating 20 percent of the revenue in LPO. The rest of Europe barely registers. It is true that the UK has been slower in its uptake of offshore legal outsourcing, what is heartening to see is that the UK market is developing fast.

Can you give any reason for this lower share of European market?

One of the reasons why the UK may have been a little slower on the uptake is that the litigation process in UK is very different from that of the US The US has a much greater document-intensive discovery process than the UK has. The prime areas for offshore outsourcing such as document review, coding and indexing are big business in the US. The UK market, on the other hand, is still in the exploratory phase as far as LPO is concerned. The UK law firms and corporations are in the process of exploring the elements of their legal processes that are suitable for offshoring. Some of their work types are radically different from that of the US.

Do you have specialists on UK market on your board who can plan appropriate solutions to the UK market?

Yes. Our Director of Business Development, Mark Ross has first hand experience of the UK market. Prior to joining LawScribe, he was a partner at a high profile law firm and was responsible for developing a case management system for the outsourcing of routine, low value, road traffic accident and personal injury cases, to his firm’s South African office. In the UK the conveyancing (real estate) and personal injury market have become highly commoditised. We have identified these areas to be eminently suitable for offshoring. We are in talks with a number of leading UK law firms and are expecting significant developments in the coming months.

Can you describe the initial process by which a client enlists your services as the preferred vendor, quoting some examples?

A California-based law firm recently approached us for a major document review project. The firm had gone through a stringent due diligence process for selecting an offshore destination, and was scouting for the right LPO vendor. Prior to winning the document review project, we were contracted to provide the firm with transcription services. This was basically a ‘getting to know you’ exercise. After we proved ourselves and helped the firm achieve significant savings in this area, we were invited to respond to a ‘Request for Proposal’ for the document review project.

What was your modus operandi in executing that project and how much the client saved?

The document review project involved the review of approximately 500,000 documents in a relatively short time frame of three months. We constituted the requisite team consisting of 30 legal professionals and arranged for a senior representative of the firm to travel to our Indian facility to coordinate a two week training programme alongside our Project Supervisor and Project Manager. After a 7-day internal pilot project, the review commenced and was completed two weeks ahead of the schedule. The firm saved over US$2,50,000 by conducting the review through LawScribe.

What are the future plans?

LawScribe is growing robustly. By the end of 2008, we anticipate a work force of 200 to 300. A surge in demand for our services has prompted adding new facilities, both onshore and offshore to accommodate this growth. We are currently looking at a number of tier-2 Indian cities as potential locations to open new offices.

Cities such as Ludhiana, Jaipur, Chandigarh, and Dehradun are high on our list. Our officials are visiting a number of potential locations. We are also exploring expansion to other offshore locations beyond India to other parts of Asia, Europe and Mexico to take full advantage of the global talent pool available.

At the ground level, we are strengthening our litigation and intellectual property departments further to meet the growing demand in these areas and augment the growth in our corporate/contracts group.

Finally, what is LawScribe’s vision?

LawScribe’s vision is two-fold. First is to become the global leader in legal process outsourcing. The path to this goal will require LawScribe maintaining consistent, top quality work performed in a secure, confidential and efficient environment. While continuing on this path, LawScribe will set the agenda for the future landscape of this industry. The second will be to maintain our position in the industry as the pre-eminent educator and speakers on the topic of outsourcing touching on issues like accreditation, best practices, standards, self-regulation and certification of ISO and Six Sigma processes.