CC makes savings by offshoring paralegals to India
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Clifford Chance ramps up Indian operation as clients squeeze low-end work
Clifford Chance and Eversheds are considering reducing low-end work normally undertaken by trainees and paralegals and farming it out to India.
Clifford ;Chance ;has embarked on a plan to ramp up its offshore paralegal capacity. This will see its Indian staff handle much of the work that is currently undertaken by London trainees and paralegals – including ;form ;395 submissions to register company ;charges, ;due ;diligence document review ;for litigation, preparing shell company ;conversions, cloning documents and certain low-level drafting.
The Indian service centre has ;access ;to ;Clifford Chance’s global document management and IT systems to aid the integration of the offshored paralegals into transactions.
The ;move ;seeks ;to improve the margins on low-end UK legal work, which has traditionally been used in the practical training of junior lawyers.
Although Clifford Chance already uses its India capability for business support staff, this is the first concrete indication that it will increase the amount of commoditised legal work being carried out offshore – something given more impetus by the impen-ding Legal Services Act.
Clifford Chance global managing partner David Childs denied that the move would affect trainee numbers in London, calling it the firm’s “principal recruitment source”.
Childs, however, said: “[It’s] likely paralegal numbers in London will now be flat or possibly fall a little as leavers are not replaced”.
Clifford Chance expects the use of the Gurgaon service centre just outside Delhi to save around £8m in costs annually once the initial infrastructure investment ;has ;been absorbed.
By 2009 Clifford Chance, which currently employs around 110 paralegals in London, wants to employ 20 paralegals and 300 business services staff in Gurgaon – equivalent to almost 10 per cent of its global business services staff.
The ;centre ;presently employs seven paralegals, with six more Indian law school graduates in training. They will have to relinquish their Indian law practising certificates owing to the restrictions on foreign firms practising local law.
Eversheds is considering a similar initiative. A spokesperson for the firm said: “We have been actively exploring the possibilities of offshoring at the request of some of our major clients, however, we would only contemplate going down this route when and if we were convinced that the quality of our product could be maintained.”
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Readers' comments (24)
Al Dous | 11-Aug-2008 4:00 pm
The end is nigh.
Sounds like the end of London fee-earners to me. Soon, there'll be no point to having anyone in London but a couple of partners swanning around, inserting instructions into a computer and sending them around the world to get done. Brave new world.
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Anonymous | 11-Aug-2008 7:48 pm
One more door closes
Paralegalling was about the last way for many people who had their legal qualifications to break into a very closed profession. I've paid as low as £7.00 an hour (and charged out at £80) so not sure what the "margin" problem is for outfits like CC.
Another sign of the meanness and greadiness of these giant client-screwing machines.
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Abhiroop Basu | 12-Aug-2008 1:53 am
Graduate Trainees?
How could this not affect trainees?
The start of the article even talks about them being affected.
If low level work is outsourced what is left for the trainee to do? As it is there is little substantive work for them.
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consultant | 12-Aug-2008 11:14 am
good move
Seems like a reasonable move. After all, every other industry is doing it / has done it. If low-end UK jobs aren't competitive enough, that's surely the UK's problem, not India's.
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sweaty and hot | 12-Aug-2008 2:16 pm
shopping
To me that sounds like a sweatshop they're running in India - hold on, what - you mean to say they're running a sweatshop in Canary Wharf too?
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Anonymous | 12-Aug-2008 5:02 pm
Protect the equity
Al Dous - exactly. The professions is on an inexorable drive to concentrate the equity in as few hands as possible, to maximise the profits for those precious few.
It's creeping, but it's getting there. The profession will end up eating itself. RIP
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Anonymous | 12-Aug-2008 5:21 pm
SCRAPING BY ON A MILL A YEAR.........
Oh DEAR GOD. Tell me it' ain't so...
Not content with charging me £600 an hour for partner time, and taking home over a million pounds a year each the CC partnership now sees fit to outsource work to India to improve their paltry PEPs even further.
Are they going to have these unfortunate Indian people sewing footballs with their feet, to further bolster profitability, one wonders?
An avaricious act fuelled by nothing but greed. I shall find a firm that treats its staff with a little more respect, and a bit less like a lemon to be squeezed until the pips squeak.
As I said, if this is true, it's revolting.
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City partner | 12-Aug-2008 5:26 pm
Stop whining
No-one is forced to use expensive law firms, so those that choose to shouldn't complain.
As this very website makes clear on a daily basis, there are hundreds of other law firms that want your business, many of which are prepared to offer a lower charge-out rate to get it. My advice is to use one next time.
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Anonymous | 12-Aug-2008 5:34 pm
Re : Stop Whining
Don't worry, CC is off the list, sunshine.
Don't you see the how this looks? Multi-millionaire partners sacking UK workers to make a few quid more on their PEPs.... What's the matter, yachts getting a bit more expensive this year are they? So much for "ethical behaviour......."
Perhaps they'll be requiring these poor Indian fellows to
spend their two week's holiday a year working in the kitchens of the senior partners? You know, for a break..... This is a nonsense and will come back to haunt the firm in time. You wait and see. Ethics are for life, not just for Christmas.
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Anon. | 12-Aug-2008 5:39 pm
Law firms are businesses
Working long hours for the wage they get might seem a bad deal to us in the West, but to the people in India who get these jobs it's compartaively well-paid and a far better deal than back-breaking farm labour or working in a factory.
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