Legal Research And Back-Office Work To Go Offshore Next in Information Week (12/9/03) reports that “[l]egal research and other back-office work carried out at law firms may be among the next set of white-collar jobs to move offshore in big numbers.”
The article quotes a Milbank Tweed partner as saying his firm is considering moving some backoffice functions to India. (An interesting aside here is whether the term “backoffice” is the reporter’s or the partner’s and, if the latter, it is meant to include paralegal work. Viewing paralegal work as a backoffice function is a different issue.)
Openwave Computing, an outsourcing company based in India, “is in pilot discussions to provide paralegal services for two or three major U.S. law firms.”
As I have suggested in numerous prior posts, the same technology that allows lawyers to work from home (online research, remote access to firm repositories, and high speed net access) facilitate moving work offshore.