Many of us already outsource significant aspects of our personal lives, for example, house cleaning, tax prep, yard work, dog walking, and grocery shopping . Next, you may send jobs to offshore personal assistants. 

Connie Crosby over at the blog slaw.ca points to a Toronto Globe and Mail article on personal assistants overseas. Outsourcing Your Life (Wall Street Journal, 6/2/07) reports on this trend in detail as well.

A more in-depth analysis of this trend (and one cited in the WSJ) is available in Person-to-Person Offshoring, an April 2007 white paper by Evalueserve Chairman Alok Aggarwal. In it, he analyzes current business models for personal outsourcing and offshoring, provides examples of markets for this, and provides a snapshot of ten leading services most likely to be offshored.

Implications for lawyers? John Tredennick pointed out in Outsourcing for the Small Law Office: Lessons from “The World is Flat.” (Trial Magazine, Fall 2006) that small law practices have ample opportunities to outsource. The cited items suggest even more options for small firms.

For BigLaw, the institutional implications seem limited. Individual lawyers, however, might find it easier to meet ever-growing billable hour targets if they can outsource even more of their personal life!