Another bar authority has analyzed offshore work and concluded that, subject to certain caveats, offshoring is permissible.
In October, I reported on a NYC Bar Association ethics opinion on offshoring. Now, the San Diego County Bar Association has issued Ethics Opinon 2007-1, which analyzes in details a factual scenario of a California lawyer who outsources significant substantive aspects of legal analysis to lawyers in India. It’s a long opinion that answers three questions. In my reading (and – remember – I don’t practice law), subject to some reasonable caveats, offshoring is permissible.
Thanks to Mark Ross of Lawscribe for pointing out this opinion. He has also written a good analysis of it at his blog, Legal Process Outsourcing.
See also Guidelines for Outsourcing Grow (National Law Journal, 5/3/07) for a short article on this and related offshoring ethics opinions.