Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is one of the outsourcing sectors in the Philippines which is considered to be one of the most successful in terms of growth. The financial difficulties experienced by our outsourcing clients like Australian, US, British and Canadian law firms are factors that contribute to the growth of LPO industry in the country.
According to Evalueserve, overhead expenses that need to be reduced include IT, accounting, marketing, legal and clerical knowledge management. These overhead expenses alone cover 17% of the overall company’s expenses. With LPO being outsourced, these costs are reduced up to approximately 7%. This is the main factor that contributes to the spur growth of LPO industry in the Philippines.
Citing global economic meltdown and other recession related crisis, an annual growth of 200% can be expected from the LPO industry alone. In the first quarter of 2010, the global LPO industry was able to employ more than five thousand experts within India and Philippines. With these numbers, the legal offshoring and outsourcing services are expected to employ more than nineteen thousand (19,000) professionals by December 2015. This increase in employment in legal outsourcing will also post annual revenue of $960 million.
During the same year, the LPO industry grew by 40-60%. According to Amanda Carpo from Kittelson & Carpo Consulting, the biggest advantage of legal process outsourcing is that it is extremely efficient and cost-effective for clients reducing their overall production cost. For example, a U.S. attorney will typically charge $150-600/hour for legal services, while there is a good part of the work which can be outsourced to legal process outsourcing firms outside the country which will cost just a fraction of the original cost charge by the U.S. attorney, thus, provides value to the client.
“Apart from that, legal process outsourcing (LPO) firms sometimes have a faster turnaround time processing legal documentation, because they specialize in this. Private law firms and the legal departments of businesses simply lack the time, infrastructure, and technology to efficiently manage this procedure,” Carpo added.
