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Offshoring Document Review: What to Consider Posted: November 28th, 2007 By: Zach Heller Category: Law Firms, Lawyer Profiles, Opinion Corner, Videos
Everywhere you look today, some new business or service is being outsourced to countries with cheaper labor and skilled technicians. Countries like India and China have a much larger role in US based industries than ever before. One area of law that is now being outsourced is e-discovery and document review. The reason is simple: save money by paying an Indian attorney who earns half as much as his US counterpart to search through hundreds and thousands of documents. But the answer is not always that simple.
Jim Wagner, CEO and Co-founder of DiscoverReady LLC, has personal experience dealing with e-discovery outsourcing. His firm, which assists many large Fortune 100 clients with the e-discovery process, first started looking into outsourcing a few years ago, citing cheaper labor as the main reason. However, there are many things you have to consider before making the jump off-shore. For instance, Indian attorneys may not be able to review documents as fast as Americans because of technology gaps, language barriers, etc. Be sure to weigh the total costs of a project, instead of simple per hour costs of review, or else you could be in for a surprise when you review your budget.
Jim talks about some other major things to consider before making the decision to off-shore your document review. For instance, there are many other ways to save money, if that is your only reason for choosing to outsource. You can cut down the number of employees or custodians’ email to read. Make sure the process you are using is as efficient as possible. Sending the process to India should be a final option and not something that you decide to jump right into.
In the video interview below, Jim tells Lawline.com a little about his own experience with document review in India. Please click play below to enjoy the 8 minute video.
Comments
You also have to consider that their quality of work might not be the same. You should try to see what people have said about their work beforehand. Comment By: Ben Dinbom - December 18, 2007
These people are exporting our jobs to India. Do you realize how many Americans law school graduates are losing their jobs in the exporting of work to India? These so called Indian "lawyers" are not educated in the American legal system...so how can they be allowed to do American attorney work?
It is beyond outrageous and these sleazy job exporters should be exposed. What will American trained lawyers who routinely pay over $30,000 per annum for their graduate law school degrees do now that their jobs are being sent to India? Is there going to be a bailout and retraining for American lawyers now that their jobs are being sent overseas? Comment By: Terry T. Temp - May 26, 2008
