Have you ever heard anyone say “I want to study law so I can get a job reviewing discovery documents?”
Not likely. Yet many US contract lawyers review documents for a living. How satisfied are they with job content and the potentially nomadic life. If job satisfaction is low, what does that mean for quality?
Contrast this to Indian lawyers who work for Legal Process Outsourcers (LPO). Legal eagles for digital age (Hindustan Times, 9/1/07) reports that for Indian lawyers, LPOs can be more attractive than Indian law firms. “When you work for an Indian law firm… the transactions you are seeing from those clients are likely limited to India-centric transactions… At high-end LPOs, lawyers are servicing multinational in-house lawyers and law firms on their global practice.” The article also reports other LPO benefits over Indian law firms: better training and more growth opportunities.
If you share my assumption that context matters for job performance and quality, then it seems likely the context for document review in India is better than it is in the US (or UK, Canada, or Australia).
Spotted at Recruiting Lawyers for Document Review … in India at Inside Opinions / Legal Blog Watch.