I had the pleasure of contributing a piece for Legal Futures website. The site focuses on the leading news and trends impacting the UK legal landscape.
My piece, A Shore Thing, comments on the impact of the onshore legal outsourcing trend and how it will potentially impact the roles of legal professionals both within and outside of the traditional legal model.
The ascent of the onshore legal outsourcing industry may change the shape and structure of traditional law firms from High Street to major City firms. The onshore component also raises questions regarding the relationship dynamics between general counsel, their respective law firm(s) and outsourcing vendors.
I also noted the changing roles of legal professionals: The 2010 Global Sourcing Study also revealed that legal outsourcing has changed the roles and dynamics of domestic lawyers and legal professionals. General counsel and lawyers who remain within the traditional legal structure of law firms and corporations will increasingly find themselves acting as aggregators, aggregating and integrating legal matters delivered from sources within and outside of their organisations. Services sourced outside of the organisation can be delivered both on and offshore. This shift to the aggregation of legal services is a sharp departure from the traditional legal services model in which attorneys offer bespoke legal advice within a discrete function area.
The recent deal announcements by WilmerHale and CMS Cameron McKenna exhibit prime examples of how these trends are being integrated in landmark deals and the legal landscape.
More information is available on the Legal Futures website.
Showing posts with label Global Sourcing Study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Sourcing Study. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
WilmerHale Insourcing
Some interesting new insourcing developments occurred this week with the D.C.-based law firm WilmerHale. The firm is launching an onshore delivery center in Dayton, Ohio which will provide a host of support services.
According to the official press release posted on the WilmerHale website, services to be performed include traditional back office services such as “finance, human resources, information technology services, [and] operations.” Additional services to be performed also include traditional legal outsourcing services such as document review and management.
The stated goal of the initiative is to “provide improved efficiencies for administrative teams and the firm, and reduce significant operational expenses.”
This announcement directly affirms the findings and projections of our 2010 Global Sourcing Study, which is currently available online at: www.fronterion.com/globalsourcing2010/
As noted in the Global Sourcing Study, legal outsourcing vendors will face increased indirect competition if law firms do indeed become more efficient on their own. It will be interesting to see if similarly positioned firms in high-cost jurisdictions seek to improve the competitiveness of their firm through consolidation and domestic cost arbitrage.
According to the official press release posted on the WilmerHale website, services to be performed include traditional back office services such as “finance, human resources, information technology services, [and] operations.” Additional services to be performed also include traditional legal outsourcing services such as document review and management.
The stated goal of the initiative is to “provide improved efficiencies for administrative teams and the firm, and reduce significant operational expenses.”
This announcement directly affirms the findings and projections of our 2010 Global Sourcing Study, which is currently available online at: www.fronterion.com/globalsourcing2010/
As noted in the Global Sourcing Study, legal outsourcing vendors will face increased indirect competition if law firms do indeed become more efficient on their own. It will be interesting to see if similarly positioned firms in high-cost jurisdictions seek to improve the competitiveness of their firm through consolidation and domestic cost arbitrage.
Monday, March 29, 2010
UK Expansion
This past week saw another noteworthy advance in the UK legal outsourcing market. UnitedLex officially launched their first public UK engagement with the UK-based telecom BT. UnitedLex will effectively take over the BT Indian-based captive legal team. According to the release, 15 UnitedLex lawyers will, “handle commercial contracting and antitrust regulation work for BT's offices in the UK, the US, India, Singapore and Hong Kong. The team will be based in Gurgaon, India.”
I had the pleasure of speaking along side Ajay Agrawal, UnitedLex Chief Solutions Officer, this week at the ERMG conference.
This announcement of UnitedLex’s official launch in the UK reflects the accuracy of our findings in the 2010 Global Sourcing Study that 88% of legal outsourcing vendors plan to increase their focus on the UK in the coming year(www.fronterion.com/globalsourcing2010). “Aggressive” expansion plans were also noted in the Law Gazette this week in an article about headcount projections from several major legal outsourcing vendors.
I had the pleasure of speaking along side Ajay Agrawal, UnitedLex Chief Solutions Officer, this week at the ERMG conference.
This announcement of UnitedLex’s official launch in the UK reflects the accuracy of our findings in the 2010 Global Sourcing Study that 88% of legal outsourcing vendors plan to increase their focus on the UK in the coming year(www.fronterion.com/globalsourcing2010). “Aggressive” expansion plans were also noted in the Law Gazette this week in an article about headcount projections from several major legal outsourcing vendors.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Global Sourcing Study: The Lawyer Feature
The previously announced 2010 Global Sourcing Study was featured as the lead story of The Lawyer. Recognizing legal outsourcing opportunities from around the world – both on and offshore – is clearly of interest to a broad number of legal professionals.
We are very excited about the informed approach taken by The Lawyer article.
We are very excited about the informed approach taken by The Lawyer article.
2010 Global Sourcing Release
Fronterion is proud to announce the release of the 2010 Global Sourcing Study: A Globalised Profession and Multi-Shore Delivery of Legal Services Study. The complete study is available by contacting the following: GlobalSourcing@fronterion.com
In summary, findings clearly show significant growth in the onshore legal outsourcing delivery market as well as increased interest from law firms and clients.
In undertaking this study we sought to answer two fundamental, but compelling questions regarding onshore legal outsourcing delivery:
1. Is there a new career path available for today’s law graduates outside of pursuing jobs at traditional law firms?
2. What is the viability of the onshore legal outsourcing market?
What we discovered about this small, but fast-growing onshore outsourcing industry – in which law firms and in-house legal departments send work to specialised delivery centers in the United Kingdom or United States, rather than India, South Africa, etc. – is the importance of a compete and thorough review of all legal resources available to law firms today.
For a number of reasons, the study includes a strong focus on onshore UK legal markets. As such, the survey polled executives from 17 of the largest global outsourcing providers, as well as ten of the 20 largest UK law firms.
The results of the 2010 Global Sourcing Study revealed that approximately 300 full-time lawyers and legal professionals are currently at work in delivery centres in Scotland, Wales and the Southwest of England. Of the top 17 global vendors, 10% of their legal delivery staff is based in the UK.
The onshore industry remains a small part of a larger trend toward offshore outsourcing, but it is certainly something that we expect to grow significantly as legal outsourcing continues to attract attention from law firms and large corporations. Consequently, this change will lead to new opportunities for legal professionals in the UK and the US.
Some 75% of outsourcing vendor executives surveyed by Fronterion said at least some of their clients had expressed an interest in onshore delivery, while 24% of vendor respondents reported a significant number of their clients were interested in onshore delivery. A further 82% of outsourcers said their clients were interested in hybrid solutions – a combination of onshore and offshore outsourcing – with over 41% of outsourcers reporting a significant interest in the hybrid-shore delivery model.
More information is available on the Fronterion website at www.Fronterion.com/2010GlobalSourcing
In summary, findings clearly show significant growth in the onshore legal outsourcing delivery market as well as increased interest from law firms and clients.
In undertaking this study we sought to answer two fundamental, but compelling questions regarding onshore legal outsourcing delivery:
1. Is there a new career path available for today’s law graduates outside of pursuing jobs at traditional law firms?
2. What is the viability of the onshore legal outsourcing market?
What we discovered about this small, but fast-growing onshore outsourcing industry – in which law firms and in-house legal departments send work to specialised delivery centers in the United Kingdom or United States, rather than India, South Africa, etc. – is the importance of a compete and thorough review of all legal resources available to law firms today.
For a number of reasons, the study includes a strong focus on onshore UK legal markets. As such, the survey polled executives from 17 of the largest global outsourcing providers, as well as ten of the 20 largest UK law firms.
The results of the 2010 Global Sourcing Study revealed that approximately 300 full-time lawyers and legal professionals are currently at work in delivery centres in Scotland, Wales and the Southwest of England. Of the top 17 global vendors, 10% of their legal delivery staff is based in the UK.
The onshore industry remains a small part of a larger trend toward offshore outsourcing, but it is certainly something that we expect to grow significantly as legal outsourcing continues to attract attention from law firms and large corporations. Consequently, this change will lead to new opportunities for legal professionals in the UK and the US.
Some 75% of outsourcing vendor executives surveyed by Fronterion said at least some of their clients had expressed an interest in onshore delivery, while 24% of vendor respondents reported a significant number of their clients were interested in onshore delivery. A further 82% of outsourcers said their clients were interested in hybrid solutions – a combination of onshore and offshore outsourcing – with over 41% of outsourcers reporting a significant interest in the hybrid-shore delivery model.
More information is available on the Fronterion website at www.Fronterion.com/2010GlobalSourcing
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