CC outsources 300 deals to Indian service centre
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)
Anonymous | 12-Oct-2009 5:07 pm
Absolutely, the quality is much higher in Pakistani law firms...though i suspect, the lawyers would expect payments slightly above the bread line fees paid to the Indian lawyers.
Am i the only one who considers such practices in developing countries by reputable international law firms borderline exploitation.
Lets face it, India despite its PR mush is teeming with poverty (last count, more than 40% of its population lived below the poverty line).
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Anonymous | 13-Oct-2009 4:19 pm
Who supervises the work/quality ?
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