There has been a gradual transition of Indian LPO industry in the way they operate and cater to foreign clientele. At the outset of the Legal Process Outsourcing concept in India, the service providers concentrated on handling simpler projects like legal billing, legal coding, indexing and legal transcription, however the LPO industry has experienced a few gradual yet dramatic changes in terms of taking more challenging and complicated work load from American law firms and independent attorneys in the fields of document review, contract management, IPR, Immigration, Bankruptcy, and few other fields previously not broached by the LPOs in India. One of the chief reasons for this transition is the advent and rise of new technological advancement combined with the renewed drive to cut costs in the wake of the global downturn. The foreign law firms and corporate legal departments have started to place their faith in entrusting the Indian LPOs with high end projects requiring more innovation and application of mind, rather than working on repetitive and tedious simpler projects.
The quality of legal work outsourced to India has vastly improved over the years and now majority of work includes high end services such as e-Discovery Management (Litigation and Regulatory Reviews), Legal Research, Deposition Summarization, Drafting of Pleadings, IP services, Compliance, Due Diligence & Contract Management. The lower end of the projects chain also continue, albeit in reduced numbers and LPOs still provide services like, legal billing, legal transcription, legal coding and indexing.
Internal Quality Control and Training mechanism assumes an important place in the cut throat LPO business in India in order to churn out quality and improved work products at all times. The work completed by the Indian LPO providers goes through stringent quality control process for determination of quality of work at multiple stages. Evaluations and assessments of an associate’s performance remains unbiased and is based on meritocracy, which in turn imbibes a positive impact on the associates and adds momentum to their quest for providing standard work product. Vigorous competition among the teams and across LPOs to perform better, inculcates a passion to pursue target completion which is again a calculated basis for measuring performance. Many LPOs offer performance incentives and yearly bonus is also based on the performance ratings of the employees. The LPO teams have recognized the significance of maintaining consistent quality checks therefore not only the associate’s work is checked and corrected but the same quality control checks are administered on managers and directors as well. The LPO industry has started using the services of Soft Skills Trainers to understand and acclimatize the employees with the American culture, accent and preferences, which enables the workforce to communicate clearly and effectively with the client. The members of the project team are given training with regard to the subject matter which clearly lays down the process and guidelines to be followed in the execution of work.
The Indian LPO Industry has come a long way from the days when the outsourcing provider was just content following and executing the client instructions, now due to many factors including the technological advancement the Indian LPO provider is entering the field of innovation and is able to make valuable suggestions to the client resulting in delivery of a better work product and increase of credibility.
