CC’s, Eversheds’ outsourcing: greed, or just common sense?

Posted at 3:35 AM, Aug. 23, 2008

The decision by Clifford Chance and Eversheds to offshore low-level legal work to India makes good business sense, but to many readers of TheLawyer.com the move smacks of greed.Comments posted on the website claimed that the firms were wrong to make savings themselves without ­passing any kind of fee reductions on to their clients, with some readers claiming clients would vote with their feet against firms that outsourced legal work.The obvious reality is that large law firms operate as businesses and as such they must meet the demands placed on them by their clients and partners, who both want to save on costs while the ­latter wants to maximise profitability.Most major banks and some large ­corporates such as General Electric now routinely send millions of pounds in basic work to offshore legal centres in India and elsewhere. That effectively draws money directly out of the pockets of City firm partners, who historically earned huge amounts from the margins made on low-paid paralegal...
Originally from: http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=134269&d=415&h=417&f=416