Legal Futurist: ‘The Party is Now Over’

B. McLeod
Nov 11, 2008 10:15 AM CST

Except that for LITIGATORS, it will be TALL cotton.  Don’t WORRY, Ellen.  THAT work is NOT going to be OUTSOURCED to India.  Your boyfriend and Managing Partner will agree with me.

Neil
Nov 11, 2008 12:01 PM CST

Susskind is correct, there are smart lawyers in India, and China too, that can work for a fraction of current costs.  As for litigation, that too will go by the wayside as mediation and other alternative dispute resolution measures become the norm.  The reason? Business and the public know that justice is not served by litigation, which has become little more that a high brow pissing contest.

Eric G.
Nov 11, 2008 3:51 PM CST

Exactly; what is smart? And lets not forget the costs of overseeing work being done in another county. I don’t know what Susskind’s background is, but his familiarity with professional conduct leaves me wondering. ON a MORE interesting note, THANKS for the PREEMPTIVE CANARY POST!

Joe G.
Nov 11, 2008 6:21 PM CST

Notice there is no real attempt to establish a link between the financial crisis and the “more demanding and discerning clients.”  Susskind is selling a book and abajournal wants to sell ad revenue with a titillating headline.  Nothing to see here, folks.

Ellen Fan
Nov 14, 2008 5:42 AM CST

Ellen Barshevsky needs her own blog.

paul k
Nov 14, 2008 6:52 AM CST

Hmmm. Sounds all well and good until some plaintiffs lawyer brings a class action against the firms using India and China and then a sympathetic judge looking out for the brethren rules that yes indeed the damaged plaintiff class is entitled to recover a gabillion dollars from the malpractice insurance companies and the lawyers who outsourced the work thus leaving malpractice carriers to drop anyone using foreign lawyers from whom they can not recover.  The clients will love the low cost at first and then when they lose this will be the basis for the plaintiff’s class action. Back to the crystal ball . . .

Al Tidom
Nov 14, 2008 7:20 AM CST

Very interesting stuff. And I love the Ellen Barshevsky post!  Kudos!

Robert
Nov 14, 2008 7:53 AM CST

Yeah right. There have been far worse economic situations in the past that have had the opposite effecton the legal profession.  It sounds to me like the “futurist” has no experience in the practice of law.  If the practice of law was nothing more than crunching numbers, I might buy into the article. But, I know better.

A
Nov 14, 2008 8:11 AM CST

Conceptually this is interesting, but practically there are many challenges.  Malpractice insurance, supervision, and increasingly a weak dollar will all slow this effort. Additionally, what is the risk of a company losing its IP if attorneys in India have access to it?  Who is really paying the malpractice insurance?  Most of the attorneys don’t understand colloquial English, what will be the impact?  Take a look at the recent Fulbright study, few people are outsourcing today. Plus contract attorneys are numerous and relatively cheap in a bad economy.

Tara
Nov 14, 2008 9:03 AM CST

I worked in what would be considered “commodotized” document review while waiting for my bar results.  The work basically consisted of looking at contracts for various phrases.  It is barely “legal work” and something an attorney would I suspect generally pawn off on a secretary, paralegal or clerk.  As to clients demanding lower fees- what else is new.  Call centers to India for specialized legal problems here is laughable- there is no way that would work…they can barely tell me whats wrong with a printer when they have a manual and database in front of them…they’re going to explain fine nuances in state and federal law or give a plan of attack as to any of these problems? Did Susskind predict the flying car as well?

Scott
Nov 14, 2008 10:14 AM CST

Great - India and China can manage our dataroom.  My clients and my firm’s clients are trusting an oversees lawyer, who they can’t call 400 times a day, with their $150 million acquisitions.

Ed H.
Nov 14, 2008 11:16 AM CST

Susskind, I believe is pretty far off on his prediction.  While I don’t think it’s a good idea to walk around with blinders on thinking that everything will go on as it has over the previous century, there is much about our profession that is not capable of being digitized or outsourced to foreign jurisdictions.  First, jurisdiction and licensing would obviously play a key role. The legal profession in most of the world’s systems protects its local licensed practitioners by prohibiting representation of clients by foreign lawyers - you almost always need to have local legal counsel to carry out representation in a foreign jurisdiction.  Second, these jurisdictional boundaries and licensing requirments are not merely antiquated protectionist rules put in place by lawyers for lawyers.  The existence of these barriers is intrinsicly tied to the concept of sovereignty.  Not only should I not be allowed to represent an Indian client just because I might be able to outcompete an Indian law firm, but I don’t know the nuances of the Indian law or its legal system nor was I educated in a law school that the sovereign nation of India has deemed adequate. Similarly,  I am not held to account for my actions on behalf of clients in India by Indian rules governing the conduct of lawyers, etc., etc.  Does anyone know if this futurist Susskind is a lawyer?  It sure doesn’t seem like he is familiar with the policy behind the rules governing lawyers.

JPW
Nov 14, 2008 12:02 PM CST

I attended a General Counsel West Coast conference last week and during that time attendees got a dose of how corporations like Gap Inc are sending legal work to India, mostly contracts that a first or second year transactional attorney would do.  Not surprising for a company that has its clothes manufactured abroad.  The conference was swarmed by sales reps from Indian outsourcers and during the mixer all GC left—leaving law firm types like me alone with the Indian salesmen—the worst mixer in my life and a dreadful conference to attend.  But from my conversations with the Indian salesmen I am convinced there is not much chance for a responsible attorney to supervise work over there.  Notice, by the way, how outsourcing to India is growing as attorneys (including temp attorneys) are out of work here.  If the trend continues, law schools need to accept less students.

Southern Lawyer
Nov 14, 2008 1:25 PM CST

Anybody who thinks that this is a good idea has obviously never had to deal with a contract dispute where one of the parties, instead of getting a lawyer, used a printed form.  The law is and will always be ultimately about people.  And until we’re all entirely predictable commodities, legal advice never can be.

3L
Nov 15, 2008 3:18 PM CST

Thank you Kenan.  I’m still in law school, but I was appalled by the spelling in that too.  She would have been laughed out of my legal writing class and I’m at a 2nd tier law school.

B. McLeod
Nov 16, 2008 3:04 PM CST

In ONE firm, where I worked for nearly five years, there was a SENIOR (firm name) partner, who could scarcely spell AT ALL.  He relied on STAFF and SPELLCHECK (and it is DANGEROUS to rely on SPELLCHECK if ye cannae SPELL).  I would see letters GOING OUT with utter gibberish, where SPELLCHECK had suggested a complete MALAPROPISM, and he had SELECTED it, knowing NO BETTER.  This man, by the way, was OTHERWISE a very capable lawyer, licensed in SEVERAL states, including CALIFORNIA (where the BAR exam is NO easy thing).

globalist
Nov 17, 2008 10:34 AM CST

Seems like we’re all so busy justifying our own importance, we’re overlooking the realistic advantage to outsourcing. 
Nobody said the Indians and Chinese will replace us as attorneys.  But I can imagine a scenario where they draft simple motions and standard complaints, etc. for less pay than an American paralegal and email them back for the local attorney to check and revise.
The courts won’t have to reach out and try to impose jurisdiction on the Indian subcontractors.  They’re more likely to place liability on the attorneys.  After all, who signed the motion when she filed it?
And one other thing: Asia’s daytime is our nighttime.  Can’t a business get more done if it fits 24 hours of work into a 12-hour day?  <i>See<i> The World Is Flat (Thomas Friedman).