In this Roundup, an update on law firm outsourcing in the UK, law firms hiring MBAs as practice managements, and more on technology to recruit lawyers. 

Outsourcing
Outsourcing and Offshoring Gain Traction in U.K. Legal Market (American Lawyer, 9/07) reports that “[w]hen it comes to outsourcing, the U.K. legal community still lags far behind many multinational corporations and major U.S. firms — but U.K. firms are beginning to catch on.” It cites numerous outsourcing examples. I disagree with the assertion that “[n]o major U.K. firms have gone so far as to outsource legal work.” Perhaps American Lawyer does not consider Lovells a “major firm”, but its so-called “Mexican Wave” offers “ground- breaking, award-winning outsourcing service that provides the highest quality work at the lowest possible cost. Lovells carries out the higher grade work whilst managing the outsourcing of the more routine work to a select group of provincial law firms (LSP).” (emphasis added)

Practice Management: Hiring MBAs
Law firms tap business expertise (Baltimore Sun, 9/11/07) reports on a trend of law firms to hire MBAs to help manage practice groups. The article provides some examples and cites Susan Raridon Lambreth, a practice management expert at Hildebrandt International. This trend is consistent with the anecdotal information I have. It’s interesting to see mainstream media pick up on it.

Technology and Law Firm Recruiting
I’ve written that law firms should use technology for recruiting (Recruiting Lawyers in BigLaw: Where is the Technology? (9/07) and A New Weapon in the Talent Arms Race (3/07)), so I was interested to see two recent articles on this topic. Bob Ambrogi reports in Recruiting Sites That Draw Thumbs Down (Law Technology News, 9/1//07) on “some of the flubs, duds and missteps” of how BigLaw uses their web sites to recruit summer associates. Law Firms Go a Bit Hollywood to Recruit the YouTube Generation (New York Times, 9/28/07) reports that several large firms have “discovered that the law students they are trying to recruit as summer associates watch YouTube [and] parlay that discovery into a hiring tool, creating recruiting videos and Web sites with the look and feel of YouTube.” (Hey, is law firm business becoming sexy or what? Two MSM articles in a month!)