Pinsents’ legal outsourcing strategy moves up a gear

Pinsents, which earlier this year became the first firm to outsource legal rather than secretarial work (The Lawyer, 22 June), is in the process of deciding which areas of legal work will be outsourced to South Africa. To date it has only outsourced litigation work.

A source at the firm claimed that “the clients have been very happy with the results, so it makes sense for us to look carefully at how and where we can expand this”.

Once the firm has identified the appropriate practice areas for outsourcing it will be able to confirm how many extra Exigent staff will be required.

The source added: “This is not about taking quality legal work away from the UK. It’s about cost efficiency and outsourcing clerical work that can be done elsewhere.”

Pinsents was an early adopter of outsourcing and has outsourced its ­documentation processing for the past five years.