Legal Process Outsourcing (LPOs) in India: Scope and Opportunities

By Nikita Anand  

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is a lesser known concept among the non-legal community. As soon as a person hears the term LPO, their mind immediately draws parallel to the better-known concept of BPO.  Images of call centres filled with youngsters jabbering away on the phone in American accent flash across. LPO and BPO are conceptually similar.  But in the matter of execution and qualification, LPO is a different world altogether.

Concept of Legal Process Outsourcing:

Lawyers in UK, US, Singapore, Dubai etc charge a lot of money on hourly basis. In order to reduce the expenses, many corporates send their legal work over to India where it can be done in the fraction of the cost. There are companies in India who receive this work and allot it to law graduates employed by it. These law graduates accomplish the required work and send the finished documentation to the client abroad. All the work and exchange of information in the LPOs takes place online. The LPOs get paid by the foreign client for the work accomplished.

Qualification and skills required:

LPOs require law graduates with a specific skill set.

1. Law degree from a recognised university
2. Good command over English – spoken and written
3. Attention to detail

Kind of work accomplished in LPOs:

Legal process outsourcing units do not work on Indian laws or for Indian clients as a rule. Bar Council of India prohibits them from doing so. The lawyers in the LPOs work on matters relating to foreign laws. The work involves drafting of certain documents on the basis of templates, reviewing documents, running company searches, legal research, Compliance to various laws, proofreading documents etc.  The work is done online with the help of specialised softwares.

Benefits of working with an LPO:

Corporate Culture - The LPOs follow the corporate format which ensures uniformity in the work space. Promotions, increments, hierarchy, proper office spaces, safer environment for women and other associated benefits. This is comparatively a lot better than working as a junior lawyer in smaller law offices wherein there is lack of corporate culture/professionalism and 12-14 hours of work hours everyday! There have been instances wherein seniors have harassed the female associates in these law offices but the females have had no one to complain to because the harasser is the boss. They have no option but to quit the job. Proper hierarchy and professional culture in LPOs makes it safer for female lawyers.

Fixed working hours – The work hours are generally fixed for 8 - 10 hours everyday. The standard is 9 am to 6 pm, but it might slightly differ if the LPO caters to UK or US clients.

Monetary benefits – The salary levels vary from one LPO to another. The bigger LPOs pay around Rs. 30,000-45,000 for freshers. whereas the smaller LPOs offer anything between Rs. 20,000 to 25,000. Some of the companies offer performance bonus and other perks too. The salaries are revised every year depending on the evaluation cycles.

Due to the fact that there is predictability of income with this career choice (unlike practicing in Indian law courts independently where there is no fixed income), employees find it easier to obtain bank loans for various purposes.  

Learning opportunities – Many LPOs hire foreign trainers in order to train their employees. Some of the LPOs work for biggest of the law firms/companies from US and UK. This gives their employees exposure to work culture of these countries LPOs also give access to best of software available for the industry.

Option to work from home – Some of the LPOs offer more flexible work culture where the employees can work from home if need arises. This ensures work-life balance for the lawyers.

The Drawback of LPOs:

There are some issues which plague the Legal Process Outsourcing industry in India:

1. Lawyers don't like the tag of 'LPO' as it sounds similar to BPO.

2. It is not exactly the topmost career choice as lawyers don't get to work on Indian laws. Working on foreign laws continuously makes them lose touch with the domestic laws,

3. The work in this industry can be tedious at times. Some of the people term it as 'grunt work'.

4. Foreign clients have reservations regarding confidentiality of documents being shared with the LPOs based in India. There is always scope of misuse of information. For example, if an LPO is processing documents pertaining to merger of two companies which is still not publicly announced, an LPO employee may misuse his knowledge and get involved in insider trading.

LPOs industry is still at nascent stage in India. In spite of all odds, there is a lot of scope of expansion and growth. There would be a lot of job opportunities in this field in the coming years.

About the Author:

Nikita Anand is Managing Editor, Mightylaws.in. She has done BA LLB from National Law Institute University, Bhopal. She believes that increasing legal awareness is the key to ensure social justice and simplification of law is the means to achieve it.

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