Category Archives: Outsourcing

Will-writing and the redefinition of “legal services”

By Jordan Furlong | Published: August 30, 2010
Last month, a BBC investigative program called Panorama exposed a wide range of illegal and unethical practices by “will-writers,” advisors who help people prepare wills and who are not lawyers. One result of that broadcast could be a significant clawback of lawyer regulatory power over the legal services marketplace in the UK, with implications for [...]
Also posted in Clients, Competition, Governance | 1 Comment

The evolution of outsourcing

By Jordan Furlong | Published: June 8, 2010
Still in its relative infancy, legal process outsourcing has already had a huge impact on the legal services marketplace: scoring major deals with the likes of Microsoft and Rio Tinto, garnering the attention of private-equity investors, and helping to expose the degree to which law firms have overcharged for the simplest legal work, among other [...]
Also posted in Clients, Innovation | 5 Comments

Just in case

By Jordan Furlong | Published: August 13, 2009
“Stuff expands to fill the space available.” If you’ve ever owned a closet, basement or garage at some point in your life, you know how true that is. The corollary, of course, is that the less space you have, the less stuff you find you really need. I once moved six times in the space [...]
Also posted in Innovation | Leave a comment

Momentum

By Jordan Furlong | Published: June 24, 2009
Momentum is one of those things everyone talks about but nobody can ever precisely define or quantify. It’s that sense that things are turning around or gathering speed in a certain direction, usually for the better — with a corollary borrowed from physics that the larger the object and the greater its velocity, the more [...]
Also posted in Billing, Innovation, New Lawyers | 9 Comments

India: Beyond legal process outsourcing

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 9, 2009
The symmetry was remarkable. Magic Circle icon Clifford Chance caused major waves in the mainstream legal media this week by announcing plans to cut up to 80 lawyers from its flagship London office, about 10% of the legal professionals there. The move, following layoff notices issued to 20 litigation associates in CC’s New York office [...]
Also posted in Globalization | 1 Comment

A new offshoring strategy?

By Jordan Furlong | Published: February 12, 2008
Another day, another article about a major international law firm getting involved in India’s legal market. Pretty soon, the question’s going to change from “Why is your firm in India?” to “Why isn’t your firm in India?” But today’s entry is notable for other reasons. Howrey LLP, reports The American Lawyer, is opening a new [...]
Also posted in Innovation | 1 Comment

The real risk of offshoring

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 25, 2008
This article from The Recorder about in-house counsel who send legal work offshore includes a line that goes straight on to my list of favourite quotes. Scott Rickman, associate general counsel at Del Monte Foods, has this to say regarding law firms’ standard warnings about offshoring: “In these articles, there’s always a quote from a partner [...]
Also posted in Clients | 1 Comment

Offshore reflections

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 8, 2008
It’s a few weeks late, but this article about offshore legal services published early last month in The Hindu is worth a read, although it’s not offered on the basis that all its contents should necessarily be taken at face value. It comes across rather as a corporate Q-and-A for SDD Global Solutions, an Indian [...]
Also posted in Billing, Ethics, Globalization, New Lawyers | Leave a comment

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