first

How do you say FIRST in Indian

Bangalore to $3/hr.!

If Seyfarth is using first-years for doc review, they're truly a TTT. Prestigious firms contract that stuff out in the first place.

.... how the hell are you gonna use India for research? Half the native speakers don't grasp the language well enough to understand the cases they are reading, how are non-native speakers gonna do it, much less understand the nuances of dicta. Outsourcing legal research will give you 100's of irrelevant cases, which attorneys will have to review anyway (and it will take them longer than researching from scratch would have).

Chilling.

OMG!

Maybe Loyola should open a Bangalore branch.

i think this is a play on words that people will think are "Manhattan Legal Services"

Not good.

11:11, you are extraordinarily ignorant. English is technically an official language of India. All Indians who receive formal education receive it in English.

Additionally, why do you have a problem with non-native English speakers practicing law? There are plenty of foreign attorneys at major law firm - I've worked with dozens.

India to $1.90

yeah, 11:11, if you recall, India was under British rule for quite some time.

firm = firms. Even native English speakers aren't typo proof.

This is a win-win:

-- Seyfarth associates get to avoid the most boring work (which gets shipped off to India).

-- Indians get to eat.

11:10 - not sure where you work or maybe you aren't in litigation, but there are definitely 1-3 year associates doing doc review at my "prestigious" firm. Yes, we do use contract attorneys at times, but there are also times where the partners don't even trust them and we have to do it ourselves. We have also had contract attorneys doing first level reviews and 1-3 year associates doing the real review once all the clearly non-relevant docs were removed. I have also seen senior associates / new partners doing doc review at times for a key player (eg. CEO's email during relevant time period). So my point is that while some of this crap can be shipped off to India, I believe doc review for young associates in litigation is here to stay!

11:22:

Assuming you're serious, you're missing that there will be less work for those associates --> fewer jobs.

Assuming you're joking, pretty lame joke.

11:18 - i think this is a play on words that people will think are "Manhattan Legal Services"

My thoughts exactly...

Serious question:

Why is it ok for non-licensed (presumably, because if they passed a US bar, they would likely be working here, rather than in India) Indian "attorneys" to do any kind of work, document review or otherwise? Its not ok for a paralegal to do it. Whats the difference?

Most Indians don't have Hofstra degrees, though--that could be a major setback.

11:35 - I was just about to ask that same question.

Let the Indians do all of the legal work! We need to focus on stopping manbearpig! I am totally serial!

11:35, I have wondered about that as well. But it would also seem that foreign lawyers should be able to do whatever US paralegals or law clerks can do, i.e., anything that doesn't require the foreign attorney to actually practice law.

Performing legal research or drafting briefs for review and revision by a licensed attorney who ultimately signs off on them doesn't seem to be practicing law.

I think, anyway - I could be wrong. I'm sure minds greater than mine have pondered and opined on this topic.

11:11 also overstates the nuance involved in a monkey-task like legal research. Further, most Indian nationals possess a better grasp of oral and written English than the masses of text-messaging and grammar-check addicted retards coming out of law schools who use "like" in every other syllable.

NY to outsourced associates!

I second 11:35, 11:37, and 11:40. Why can Indian attorneys do doc review when U.S. paralegals can't? And 11:40-- I'm pretty sure that paralegals aren't supposed to do research or drafting even if supervised by a licensed attorney, although at some smaller firms I've heard that they occasionally do.

that glass is more than half empty.

11:41: I happen to be a text-messaging and grammar-check addict retard coming out of law school who uses "like" in every other syllable!

Er, paralegals can do doc review as long as they are "supervised" by a practicing attorney (even if that attorney is in another country). Put another way, paralegals can do doc review.

Yikes!

PS: Re reception.

Curry or sushi?

Sucks to be L2L, but good for those of us who aren't bottom-feeders.

11:18, you are extremely defensive. The fact that English figures prominently in India does not change the fact that Indian people, living in India are unlikely to have the mastery of the English language necessary to read judicial opinions (since Judges really love to verbally masturbate). You can talk to any India based call center, or speak with any company that has dealt with outsourcing, and you'll see that knowing English, and mastering English are not the same.

I will concede that perhaps I wasn't perfectly clear in my post, I didn't mean to imply that non-native speakers can't be excellent attorneys, only that foreigners (that live in foreign countries and use a foreign language for 99% of their communication) can't...at least in a majority of cases.

I think everyone here is missing the point. I think paralegals MAY do doc review (and can draft briefs and research when supervised by an attorney) but no firm or partner will let them because 1) it is their head on the platter when your paralegal accidentally turns over the smoking gun that was privileged and 2) associates doing doc review are huge billable hours and thus huge $$$ in partners pockets.

11:41, I'm not sure where you work, but the legal research assignments I've usually received involved an esoteric set of facts that had no applicable direct case law, and a cogent argument had to be molded from related cases (and sometimes very random, unrelated cases). This sort of analysis and case cherry picking is language intensive. On the other hand, I guess India can be used for research where there is direct case law, but then how do you know ahead of time? Additionally, if there is direct case law, it shouldn't take a real associate much time to find it.

Ethical questions:

1. Can a US law firm bill a client for attorney time where the “attorney” is not licensed to practice in the jurisdiction where the matter is pending (or for that matter anywhere in the US)?

2. Do fee agreements that specify billable hourly rates for “associate” time allow firms to bill the clients “full bore” for the outsourced East Indian “attorneys” at associate rates?

3. If a guy or gal in India for Christ sake is going to be doing the actual work, why does the client need a tier 1 US firm? (Why not just hire Joe Zablonski and Associates at very low rates—at least they are LICENSED!)

It seems a little implausible that market forces driven by client demand wouldn't have moved doc review to paralegals by now if the ethical rules permitted it. Law clerks and summer associates are a bit of a different story; I think there's some exception that allows law students and not-yet-admitted attorneys to engage in limited practice under the supervision of an admitted attorney, but I don't think that extends to people who aren't at least in law school. Whether a licensed Indian attorney is more like a paralegal or more like a law clerk is perhaps an unsettled question, but consider this: why would so many foreign-trained lawyers pursue U.S. LL.M.s in order to sit for a U.S. bar exam if they could go directly to work for a firm under the supervision of a partner?

11:52 -- Any Indian law graduate will speak and read English incredibly well. All of his or her coursework will be almost solely in English, which he or she will have learned as early as you or me. When traveling through India, I was incredibly surprised by the amount of near-fluent English speakers (except for the non-educated, who clearly aren't doing Seyfarth doc review). I had a far easier time getting around India than Spain or Italy when it came to English-speaking natives.

"why would so many foreign-trained lawyers pursue U.S. LL.M.s in order to sit for a U.S. bar exam if they could go directly to work for a firm under the supervision of a partner?"

Because they would make more money practicing here with an LL.M than working under the "superivision" of a partner in their native country for peanuts.

I used to work at a firm that outsourced tons of stuff to India. The work that's being outsourced isn't attorney work and normally not even paralegal work. It's the sort of data entry work you have done by your word processing center, and it's cheaper to have Indians do that than Americans, plus the time difference gives you a bigger talent pool than the limited number of people willing to do night-shift WP in the US. Since you typically use the Indians on a contract basis too (sharing them with many other firms), it's cheaper and easier to manage them than having your own WP staff.

As to actual attorney work, I can't see any major firm getting away with outsourcing that. The reason clients pay insane fees to V10 firms is risk-aversion; no one ever got fired for hiring Cravath. The only firms that can get away with this are going to be the lower-tiered ones that handles cases that matter less to their clients, so the risk aversion isn't so strong.

12:13,

You misunderstood my point. To clarify-- if it is ethically permissible for an unlicensed foreign-trained attorney to undertake the practice of law under the supervision of a U.S.-licensed lawyer in his foreign country, why would it be necessary to obtain an LL.M. and sit for the bar exam in order to work as a lawyer in *this* country? For that matter, if it were correct that paralegals can review and draft documents under the supervision of a licensed practitioner, why would it be necessary for *anyone* to go to law school if they aspire to do nothing more than work as a career associate? By that logic, as long as you're working under the supervision of a licensed partner, it would be okay to go work as an associate right out of college. That can't possibly be right.

I went to a really good law school (Ave Maria), so I'm totally set, but my heart goes out to the American contract attorneys who will lose their jobs with this outsourcing.

I would like to point out that there are a lot of people on this thread talking out of their asses with regard to legal ethics issues. Most of these posts include "I think", or "... it seems", or "that can't possibly be right". It doesn’t matter what your personal opinion is or how things seem to you. All that matters are the actual rules. Anyone know any relevant ones to cite?

12:26,

No, I don't. If you'd like to pay me my hourly rate, I'd be happy to research it for you. Otherwise, this being a law blog and not a court brief, I'm going to continue talking on the basis of what I remember from Professional Responsibility without undertaking an exhaustive review of the ethics rules. Feel free to correct me if you have greater knowledge of the substance of those rules than I do.

From their website:

"Manthan connotes the churning of excellence."

Are you gonna trust these guys with assessing the nuances of US legal issues?

12:09,

Since most LLM programs only require foreign educated attorneys to take 25% of the credits that JDs take, one can make the argument that foreign lawyers should be viewed more like law clerks than paralegals. As such, I think they would be able to perform "supervised" tasks.

11:07, in case you were not being sarcastic (if you were, ignore this), allow me to enlighten you. There is no language known as "Indian". India has 500 dialects of various languages, more than any other part of the world. While this may make it confusing even for a resident of India, it also makes for one of the richest cultures in the world (rich in terms of diversity, not per capita income).

The most common language in India is Hindi, of which there are several common dialects. The word "first" in Hindi as well as some of these dialects of Hindi would be "pehla".

On a side note, the primary language in Pakistan, Urdu (a hybrid of mostly Hindi, but much Arabic and Farsi), also uses the word "pehla" to mean "first".

"11:07, in case you were not being sarcastic (if you were, ignore this), allow me to enlighten you. There is no language known as "Indian". India has 500 dialects of various languages, more than any other part of the world."

None of which happen to be standard English, alas.

11:44

To clarify-- if it is ethically permissible for an unlicensed foreign-trained attorney to undertake the practice of law under the supervision of a U.S.-licensed lawyer in his foreign country, why would it be necessary to obtain an LL.M. and sit for the bar exam in order to work as a lawyer in *this* country?
______________________________

It is NOT necessary. NY allows people with law degrees from certain common law jurisdictions (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India) to sit for the NY Bar exam directly, without a US LLM. Once the foreign candidate passes the NY Bar, he can work here as an attorney.

The thing is, the vast majority of non-US law graduates who are successful at NY Biglaw (including partners at top firms) tend to have US LLMs (admittedly, almost exclusively from Harvard, Columbia, NYU). So I guess it's more of the herd mentality both on the part of the candidates and the law firms.

Thacher Proffitt & Wood has laid off 22 1st year associates -- all structured finance and real estate -- as well as 3 mid level associates. They have until January to leave, with 4 months' severance. They were told at a short meeting at noon today.

Lat -- I think this deserves a new post, along the lines of your previous coverage of the firm.

Actually, "first" in Hindi (and urdu) would be spelled in roman script as "pahela".....

I am not to be thinking this is a good idea.

As I mentioned before, there is no area of law that cannot be done by a man in a diaper.

That is all.

12:56: Just in time for the holidays. How lovely.

I don't know of any ethical rule that says paralegals can't review documents. (Nothing to cite, since I can't cite a negative.) I would hope this is done under a lawyer's supervision. "Market forces" have driven many large-scale document reviews to contract attorneys, because they are usually cheaper than all but the most junior paralegals.

::NEWS FLASH::

It could be worse:

Today at TPW -- 24 non-first years, 15 in structured finance, have been asked to look for jobs (or as the Donald would say, "You're fired").
Also, first years are being offered packages to leave, but none fired so far.

Let me know when you see these Indian lawyers play a major role (or any significant role) in bet-the-company litigation for GE, M&A work for Goldman, or appellate work for anyone. Then I'll start worrying.

If Walmart is so worried about rising associate salaries, they should let this Indian firm do all their legal work.

To all the law students posting to complain that non-native speakers won't be effective legal researchers, the Indians WON'T DO RESEARCH! They'll review documents just like a temp attorney. I don't think this development will affect anyone but temp attorneys like L2L.

White guys with Asian Contract Attorneys!

Anybody, from paralegals to law students to Indian lawyers to homeless bums, can do legal research and writing, as long as the final work product is signed off by an admitted attorney. But obviously not all firms let paralegals do everything they can do.

The tasks that require bar-admitted lawyers are client-interaction work, like arguing in court, negotiating settlements, billing for fees, providing privilege, etc.

Sounds like some people failed the MPREs.

And the reason foreign lawyers with LLMs study for the bar in New York is so that they can get hired by law firms, who pay them a high salary and bill them out at higher rates. They can not take the bar and be a paralegal if they really want to.

1:30, Read Lat's post. It explicitly states "legal research" only mentions doc review in parantheticals. This is why the posters are up in arms. I haven't really seen anyone argue that doc review can't be outsourced (although, like the outsourcing in the programming world, you are likely to have MAJOR quality control issues)

As someone who didn't learn his Hindi from watching ridiculous Bollywood movies, I can tell you that "first" in proper Hindi is actually "pratham"...

*parentheses

As someone who didn't learn his Hindi from watching ridiculous Bollywood movies, I can tell you that "first" in proper Hindi is actually "pratham"...

1:41, the quote from Lat's post stating "legal research" is only from a "tipster." I don't think the tipster knows what work the Indians will perform, and I doubt even a tier 2 firm would want to explain to high paying clients why they're outsourcing research.

According to Wikipedia (caveat), more Indians speak English as at least a second language than speak Hindi as a first. For mind-numbing doc review, those who've been educated in English since nursery school (meaning all attorneys) are fine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_languages_by_total_speakers

1:41, the quote from Lat's post stating "legal research" is only from a "tipster." I don't think the tipster knows what work the Indians will perform, and I doubt even a tier 2 firm would want to explain to high paying clients why they're outsourcing research.

__________________________________

So why is Seyfarth inviting its attorneys to meet with and explain their practices to Indian attorneys who will only be doing paralegal-level doc review?

Indian lawyers at top (or even middling) Indian firms are perfectly capable of doing document review.

The question is, why would any lawyer working in the most protectionist legal environment on the planet want to do so?

tu sab haram zadeh hai. mere tutti khaoge kyon ki hum sub tumhare nakriyo ko lehre hai. hindustan zindabaad.

fvcking rundis.

2:02
answer: more $$$

Someone needs to inform the New York State Bar about this outsourcing of legal work.

If I had to work my ass off in law school and pass the bar, in addition to paying my bar dues, the NY State Bar had damn well start acting like a medieval guild and block this job outsourcing.

Anyone know what the scrivener's guild did when faced with the Gutenberg Bible?

1:55, because I, for one, would want to know the procedure for assigning doc review. I'd also like to meet some representatives so I'm not just sending my work out into an anonymous void.

You could be right, maybe they're doing research too. I just doubt it and haven't seen anything to change my mind.

Seyfarth is paying the Indians $25/hour for paralegal work. No associates are losing their jobs.

2:31

Are you a partner?

What everyone is up in arms about is the future possibility that work will be outsourced thus reducing the number of associates that are paid an enormous amount of money.

This is why I am arguing that the bar association needs to get involved in this.

2:31 - now I'll have to wait even longer for my binders! :(

I, for one, would want to know the procedure for assigning doc review. I'd also like to meet some representatives so I'm not just sending my work out into an anonymous void.
__________________________________

When was the last time your firm invited you to a reception in order to meet the people who perform doc review and explain the procedures for making such assignments?

Most firms still either handle all doc review in house or domestically, and it would never occur to them to do such a thing--but Seyfarth Shaw is going to fly over a bunch of doc reviewers from India to NYC to meet their attorneys and discuss their practices, when they won't even introduce the people doing doc review in the basement 10 floors down?

"Manthan Services has a pointed focus to comprehensively deliver the value of quality and cost to companies around the world through optimized global delivery model. "

wow

Not that I think SS is this forward-thinking, but India is going to start letting in foreign lawyers any day.

UK firms are setting up their own offices there just doing IT and waiting for the day the law changes to hang their shingle.

see here: http://currentemployment.blogspot.com/2007/11/india-ready-to-in-source-outsiders.html

Didn't the DC Bar make a huge issue out of firms using contract attorneys who weren't licensed in DC a few years ago? Assuming that most of the contract attorneys were doing doc review, that makes me think that, at least in DC, it would not be ok to outsource doc review projects to India.

It seems like most state bars make it as difficult as possible for "outsiders" (whether from another U.S. state or not) to perform any task that would be considered "the practice of law," even if it is mostly for the purpose of protecting local attorneys and making sure the state bar gets yearly dues, etc. I don't think associates need to worry about losing their jobs to India anytime soon.

Who cares about UK ponces setting up firms in India? What's important are U.S. associate jobs!

Re-lax.

If EEO-Chi is right, this is temporary. All the firms (like seyfarth) that are thinking about India as cheap contract work will be hiring those attorneys full time and giving them local real estate transactions to work on once the market opens up.

India is a country with democratic history and western understanding of business at the door to the middle east. Every firm worth its salt internationally will be snatching up office condos in Delhi.

It would be nice to see some of the Seyfarth partners going to India and getting quite a bit of Mumbai belly.

4:08 - The question is, why aren't U.S. firms doing the same?

Your U.S. associate job in India shouldn't be going to an Indian lawyer - it should be going to an American lawyer making ridiculous coin for relocating.

4:26

Because Seyfarth partners don't want to get Mumbai belly nor do they want to pay "ridiculous coin" to overpaid associates to get Mumbai belly in India?

Check out their website
http://www.manthanlegal.com/practices/

From their site, it looks like they're doing much more than secretarial/paralegal work or doc review. They claim that they do "legal work" in all kinds of fields, including legal research, drafting motions, responses, sum.judgs, appellate briefs, immigration forms.

Nice use of the wine glass. Hindus don't drinky drinky...

Ok 4:40, you've convinced me that they'll be doing more than doc review.

According to a partner from a firm that argued in favor of hiring Indians to do legal work, many of them came to the US and received a law degree and passed the relevant bar exam(s) and then went home to India because (1) it is home and their family is there and (2) making $30/hour there is equivalent to making >$160K here. Dunno if it's true.

According to a partner from a firm that argued in favor of hiring Indians to do legal work, many of them came to the US and received a law degree and passed the relevant bar exam(s) and then went home to India because (1) it is home and their family is there and (2) making $30/hour there is equivalent to making >$160K here. Dunno if it's true.

Posted by: Anonymous | November 27, 2007 05:33 PM
__________________________________

You can't possibly be this gullible, can you?

Why don't they just hire people in the bottom 50% of UCLA, who otherwise have no options but to go into insurance defense?

5:33,

So what you are saying is that someone went to the US from India, paid $100k for an American law degree, and then went back to India to make pennies on the dollar. How did they pay for law school in the US? I call BS.

6:51 is a USC troll

8:08,

Don't insult me. The bottom 50% of USC also have no option but to go into insurance defense.

Where have you all been for the past decade? Its not like SS is the first firm to explore this option. There are many firms already doing this big and small, and many large corp in-house legal depts have set up their own facilities in India to do this type of work and other repeatable business processes. Do a little research before slagging on about something you know nothing about.

http://www.lexadigm.com/
http://www.cpaglobal.com/patents/intellevate
http://www.legaleasesolutions.com/faq.htm

The list is very long...

I can also pretty much guarantee that SS didn't fly anybody in from anywhere for a meeting like this. The vendors cover their own costs when they do any such promo work, and the majority of these Indian shops utilize local US based project managers and account reps, who are probably the people making an appearance.

The move to use offshore or temp contract reviewers is purely client driven...and the savings are always passed through 100%.

Having managed many 100+ person review projects for multiple large firms in the past this post is not surprising or anything new. The biggest surprise is that its came from SS, a firm that doesn't usually have very many large scale doc reviews....

Paralegals to doc review

I'm a first year at Seyfarth - haven't done any doc review at all. In fact, I've done a ton more "real" work than the vast majority of my friends at the more "prestigious" firms.

Did anyone attend the reception? Details, please!

This is hilarious!

"Manthan Services has a pointed focus to comprehensively deliver the value of quality and cost to companies around the world through optimized global delivery model. "

wow.
______________________________

11.27.07 @ 3:23 p.m., if you were trying to suggest by posting this excerpt that Manthan is especially incompetent, compare it to the average Business-speak "mission statement" of any American services company. In terms of incomprehensibility, absence of meaningful content, and questionable grammar, the two are neck and neck.

Its presentation differ from other posts...
Regards,
http://www.saibposervices.com/Outsourcing_for_Legal_Projects.aspx

Legal process outsourcing