US State introduces Bill to stop law firms from off-shoring work to Indian LPOs

The State of Connecticut has introduced a Bill, prohibiting the outsourcing of the drafting, review or analysis of legal documents. The Bill proposes that the practice of law includes drafting, reviewing, or analyzing legal documents for clients in the State of Connecticut and any person who performs such acts and has not been admitted as an attorney in Connecticut will be committing the offense of the unauthorized practice of law..The State of Connecticut has introduced a Bill, prohibiting the outsourcing of the drafting, review or analysis of legal documents. The Bill proposes that the practice of law includes drafting, reviewing, or analyzing legal documents for clients in the State of Connecticut and any person who performs such acts and has not been admitted as an attorney in Connecticut will be committing the offense of the unauthorized practice of law..The Bill proposes to prevent foreign law firms and corporates from off-shoring the drafting, reviewing and analysing of legal documents to workers overseas. This could impact the Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) sector in India. The statement of purpose of the Bill, clearly states that outsourcing of legal document review to non-attorneys constitutes the unauthorized practice of law..The Connecticut Law Tribune quoting the Connecticut State Rep. Patricia Dillon said, “There is a quality issue here and also a jobs issue. The licensure of teachers and health professionals is often not portable across state lines in this country, yet some legal work is being done abroad with no quality oversight”..The most common scenario is that a large corporation, wanting to cut legal costs, forces law firms with which it does business to send document review work overseas to places like India for a fraction of the cost. The reasoning behind passing of such a Bill lies in Dillon questioning the people, and the training behind the legal work, which is being outsourced..Legal Blogger, Lisa Solomon states in her blog that this sloppily-drafted bill (“legal document review” is a completely different animal than drafting legal documents or conducting legal research, which are also encompassed by the bill’s language) ignores the substantial body of principled analysis of the issues surrounding legal outsourcing in favour of facile protectionism that won’t cure the legal profession’s real ills. Lisa further states that the Bill is inconsistent with the unanimous acceptance of outsourcing by ethics authorities outside Connecticut and it doesn’t address the real issues faced by unemployed Connecticut lawyers..The ET quoting Sanjay Kamlani, co-CEO of LPO firm Pangea3, said, “the proposed Bill seeks to stop the flow of high-end and sophisticated legal functions to India. This is happening at a time when US law firms are increasingly looking at LPOs strategically, as long-term partners, to offer more value to their clients. A lot of legal work from financial services, IT and entertainment sectors is coming to India from New York, New Jersey, California, etc. Some US attorneys familiar with the LPO model have called it “a sloppily drafted bill” that ignores the substantial body of principled analysis of issues surrounding legal outsourcing in favour of facile protectionism that won’t cure the legal professions real ills..While some States like Ohio continue to support and approve outsourcing, the State of Connecticut has decided to oppose it.