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Integrity Legal

2nd Sep 2010

With the rise of the Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) Industry it is increasingly imperative that firms and individuals in the United States conduct due diligence in order to fully ascertain the credentials of those handling legal processing tasks offshore. There are many jurisdictions in which the legal profession is relatively young. As a result, there are relatively few rules and regulations regarding those individuals and companies which operate in areas that may be considered within the bailiwick of legal practitioners in the United States of America.

For American firms, proficiency in the English language is a major asset that is often assiduously sought when trying to find a legal process outsourcing service abroad. Furthermore, those overseas firms with staff who have fluency in both English and other languages can provide significant benefits to law firms in the United States handling cases in multiple international and interstate jurisdictions. That said,  language proficiency is not the only important attribute of a foreign legal processing service. There are many other aspects of a firm that must be examined before making a decision to retain legal processing services.

For those unfamiliar with the legal process outsourcing industry it has been growing in recent years due to consumer, corporate, and practitioner demands for faster and more efficient legal processing. Furthermore, many law firms in the United States are increasingly seeing the benefits of affordable legal processing services provided by competent legal firms abroad. In the vast majority of factual scenarios, the work of a practicing attorney cannot be effectively replicated through mere usage of a legal processing service, but an individual American attorney (or attorneys) could achieve large economies of scale in a practice area by utilizing the efficient and reasonably priced legal services of foreign legal processing professionals.

Although the “common law” system is not ubiquitous around the globe, this system of adjudicating cases is used by many jurisdictions throughout the world. Countries such as India have a long history of common law jurisprudence. Many legal processing firms in India can complete legal processing tasks faster and more efficiently than similar services in the United States and other English speaking countries.

As the world becomes increasingly “smaller” through globalization there is strong evidence to suggest that more countries will be doing business in and around Asia. Those with business in Asia often find that legal services are a necessity. Assistance is especially effective where the firm can provide reasonably priced legal services in both English and those languages used with great frequency throughout Asia such as: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, and Vietnamese.

For information related to this post please see: Legal.


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