Priyanka Golikeri

Mumbai: Chitra Pathak considers herself very lucky.

Five years after joining the legal process outsourcing world, the 30-year-old law professional has experienced what she calls “quick career growth”.

Joining as an associate after completing her bachelors from the Government Law College, Mumbai, Chitra has gone on to become a manager (legal services).

She takes home a handsome six-figure salary every month.

The vertical take-off, Chitra says, is something she might not have achieved, had she joined a law firm as a trainee or an associate.

“In a law firm, an individual takes a minimum 10-15 years to become a partner. There is also a lot of struggle with little client contact and of course, meager earnings.”

She swears the LPO sector is one of the best places for any law graduate to be in.

And there are many: India churns out 80,000 law graduates a year, according to University Grants Commission data.

As a corollary, LPOs are becoming a significant vertical within India’s outsourcing story.

LPOs provide services in litigation support, contract review, legal research, analytics, patent and technical support services to clients,who include law firms and corporates across the globe. According to National Association of Software & Service Companies (Nasscom) estimates, the LPO segment is poised to cross $6 billion turnover mark by 2010, and tower to $15-20 billion by 2015.

A key factor for the boom in the segment, over and above the vast talent pool, is the salaries offered here,which can be about Rs 25, 000 at the entry level.

That’s just 20-30% of what US law firms pay.

“This results in huge cost advantage for clients abroad,”

says Sanjay Kamlani, co-CEO and director of the New York-headquartered LPO firm Pangea3.

Training grads is not a huge task since the Indian legal system borrows heavily from the UK version and is not radically different from US law.

Pangea3, which started its services in 2004, and has over 150 clients, is looking at raising manpower 50% from 300 now, by December 2008.

“We are witnessing a 50% quarter-on-quarter growth. We have 4 centres currently (in Mumbai and New Delhi), and are looking at expanding to Bangalore and Pune by 2009,” says Kamlani.

The story at Mindcrest (India) Pvt Ltd, which was among the first to start LPO services in India way back in 2001, is no different. The company will expand its lawyer base from 450 to 700-800 in the next twelve months.

“We expect a 200% topline growth this year as the Indian market dynamics are moving in the right direction,” says Rohan Dalal, managing director of Mindcrest.

Mindcrest will be setting up a third centre in a year’s time, in addition to ones in Mumbai and Pune.

ValueNotes Research, a company that is into business intelligence, says the number of jobs in the LPO segment in India could swell from over 16,000 at present to 32,000 by December 2010.

That throws up ample career opportunities.

Steve Naylor, head of legal services at WNS Global Services, the New York Stock Exchange-listed outsourcing giant, says LPO is still quite new to India and accounts for less than 11% of the $6.3 billion information technology enabled services (ITeS)-business process outsourcing (BPO) pie.

“But this means that there is a huge market to be tapped.” WNS has been offering LPO services since the last two years, and is currently experiencing a 50% year on year growth in terms of headcount, says Naylor.

“Our staff of 200 plus lawyers helps clients in optimizing their legal functions.”

LPO experts believe that as the global marketplace becomes increasingly competitive and economies slow down, corporations are being forced to streamline operations and cut costs to maintain profitability.

The situation across global law firms and corporate legal departments is no different.

“The trend towards offshore outsourcing, which is well under way in the IT services and finance sectors, is gaining significance in the legal industry as well,” says Pangea3’s Kamlani.

The LPO opportunities have of late been drawing information technology (IT) players too. Infosys Technologies, India’s No.2 software firm, through its BPO division entered LPO nine months ago, and employs 150 people at its centres in Bangalore and Pune.

Joydeep Mukherjee, headknowledge services at Infosys BPO, said earlier, the company was providing contract reviews as part of BPO services to clients.

“But more and more clients started looking for legal help, and therefore we decided to branch out,”Mukherjee said. By March 2009, Infosys plans to double workforce to 300 by expanding to Gurgaon.

Rival HCL Technologies also has a presence in the LPO space now.

And late last month, Wipro, India’s No. 3 software company, made an entry with 80 employees. It is aiming to provide services like patents and contract management that is outsourced by mostly corporates.

Source : DNA