CC outsources 300 deals to Indian service centre
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Clifford Chance passed 12,000 hours of work to its Indian service centre in the last financial year, the equivalent level that would be done by seven London associates at 100 per cent utilisation.
Indian legal website LegallyIndia.com reported that lawyers in the Indian knowledge centre, which is based just outside Delhi, worked with 15 offices around the firm’s international network, doing work on over 300 client projects.
The website quoted the firm’s annual report as saying that the knowledge centre, which has grown from four lawyers in 2007 to around 30 now, has enabled Clifford Chance to significantly reduce client bills.
“On a large project for a major international bank the use of Knowledge Centre lawyers for certain aspects reduced the overall cost to the client by almost 20 [per cent],” the report said.
Lawyers from the Indian offshoring centre have also been seconded to Clifford Chance’s Dubai, London, New York and Singapore offices.
As revealed by The Lawyer last year, the firm ramped up its offshore paralegal capacity so that Indian staff could handle much of the work that had been handled by London trainees and paralegals (11 August 2008).
At that time the firm projected that it would save £8m annually from the project.
The firm began looking seriously at India in 2007 (4 June 2007).
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Readers' comments (12)
Can you Adam & Eve it | 1-Oct-2009 11:28 am
it's a slippery slope
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Rajiv S | 2-Oct-2009 7:04 am
Adam & Eve, it looks like a slippery rope perhaps for you but CC is saving massive amount of money at the end of the day. In London, UK associates used to mourn a lot on their work but in India the Indian Associates do not mourn nor go for cup of tea and biscuits !
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badger bait | 2-Oct-2009 10:06 am
12,000 hours divided by 7 lawyers = 1715 hours per year p.a.
since when was that 'full utilisation'?
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mary | 2-Oct-2009 10:32 am
badger - the billable hour target is 1700....
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Anonymous | 2-Oct-2009 1:46 pm
Rajiv - they are not 'indian associates', they are the equivalent of paralegals and do paralegal work (despite being qualified Indian lawyers).
The link to associates billables etc is incorrect.
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Big Dave | 2-Oct-2009 2:28 pm
Rajiv S: big claps, tea and biscuits are for wimps.
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Pravin Anand | 3-Oct-2009 5:46 am
As per our discussions
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Vinod Surana | 3-Oct-2009 5:48 am
Vinod would you now like to discuss setting up an outsourcing centre in all that spare space in Chennai? We could target all the medium range firms in the UK and US who are 'bleeding' cost. Let me know. Christopher
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Anonymous | 5-Oct-2009 7:05 am
Good luck getting a sensible written product for those hours.
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Anonymous | 6-Oct-2009 11:45 am
Should have considered firms in Pakistan the quality of lawyers in much higher,
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