Outsourcing finally hits lawyers...

The Washington Post (which has outsourced some of its' tech news to TechCrunch as of this week) reports that the days of law school grads landing the $150,000 jobs drafting contracts at megafirms may be in jeopardy due to outsourcing, just as tech folks saw their jobs move to India years ago.

GURGAON, India -- When Aashish Sharma graduated from law school two years ago, his father had visions of seeing him argue in an Indian court and eventually become an honorable judge.

Instead, Sharma, 25, now sits all day in front of a computer in a plush, air-conditioned suburban office doing litigation research and drafting legal contracts for U.S. companies and law firms. He is part of a booming, new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers.

Imagine that. The explosion of litigation costs and the massive volume of electronic information involved in today's court cases, has overwhelmed the market for affordable attorneys and paralegals, according to the Post. Instead, that electronic information can be shifted around the world and done overnight so when the $800/hour partner comes in the next morning, the task of analyzing, cataloging and researching is done for a pittance compared to what it would cost to pay experienced American paralegals to work overnight. 

"Ninety percent of a lawyer's work is legal research and drafting, and all this can now be offshored to India," said Russell Smith, who worked in a Manhattan law firm called SmithDehn before moving to India to set up an outsourcing company in 2006. "A large portion of our fees in the U.S. is because of office rent. It is often a big decision to hire one attorney in the U.S. In India, we can hire 10 at a time and train them all at once."

Smith's Indian company, SDD Global Solutions, handled much of the legal work for the film "Borat." Other clients include the Washington-based firm Appleton & Associates and U.S. movie studios and television networks.

"My people in India can do everything from here, except sign the opinion letter and appear in an American court," he said.

Smith's Indian office recently researched and drafted the motion papers for the dismissal of a libel case against the producers of HBO's "Da Ali G Show." Smith said that if it had not been for the cheaper option of outsourcing, the producers would have settled.

Imagine the consequences for the American legal system if every party had the resources to prepare for trial rather than weigh the costs of arguing their case successfully, and then the likelihood of recovering fees against the cost of a settlement.