A surprising number of legal firms take advantage of the opportunity to outsource work to qualified third parties, which might seem like an odd move unless you are familiar with the reasons behind it.
To bring you up to speed, here is a look at some of the factors which motivate legal firms to rely in part on outsourcing, rather than handling everything in-house.
Driving down costs
In many cases it is cheaper to pay an outside vendor to complete specific legal tasks rather than assigning this work to a permanent member of the team.
The potential for savings is amplified further by the fact that many legal firms can now easily outsource work to overseas operators, where lower labor costs can be leveraged. As the market is so competitive, it is therefore necessary for organizations to do all they can to make savings where possible, and outsourcing is one of the ways to achieve this.
In addition, this overcomes one of the main issues with outsourcing legal research; namely that being limited to local networks was, in the past, a bone of contention. Access to overseas experts in the modern era solves this.
Catalyzing important projects
When the amount of work on the table is too much to handle efficiently when relying on internal resources, and the threat of delays looms as a result, outsourcing is the obvious option for increasing capacities and ensuring that deadlines are met.
Furthermore when using overseas vendors, legal firms can even set up round-the-clock coverage for their operations, rather than being beholden to the office hours in their particular part of the world.
Embracing flexibility
As hinted at earlier, the volume of work that legal firms are faced with will inevitably change over time, so it can be tricky to operate optimally as the ebb and flow of clients and cases shifts from week to week and month to month.
Outsourcing lets organizations of all sizes be far more flexible and agile in this context, meaning that they can choose to take on more work when opportunities present themselves without fear of being unable to shoulder the extra burdens involved using only internal resources and talent.
This also means that smaller firms can compete more successfully with their larger counterparts without needing to overextend themselves in terms of staffing.
Escaping mundane duties
The final, often overlooked reason that outsourcing makes sense for lots of legal firms is that it prevents them from having to encumber in-house lawyers with the kinds of tasks which are both time-consuming and quite often bland and comparatively basic.
For highly educated and experienced teams, this means that they can instead turn their focus to the more complex and satisfying aspects of the job, while still being confident that the essential yet less interesting duties are getting sorted effectively.
So there you have it; outsourcing in the legal industry is here to stay, and its benefits far outweigh any small issues that do exist.
Article written by Christopher Heer:
Christopher Heer is the owner and founder of Heer Law. He is an intellectual property lawyer, registered patent agent, registered trademark agent, and is also certified as a specialist in intellectual property law (patent) by the Law Society of Ontario. He believes that intellectual property rights add tremendous value to businesses by enabling them to raise capital, build asset value, and grow faster under the protection that these exclusive rights give them.
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