Legal Process Outsourcing offers good business opportunities in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's first international conference on LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) titled "Outsourcing vs Restructuring - Challenges in International Business Structures", opened on Thursday bringing together an array of experts on law, ICT and business and combination of the three disciplines.
It was noted that Sri Lanka has immense potential in LPO, which involves sending legal work off shore to a lower cost jurisdiction.
Avinash Vashista, Chairman of Accenture, Bangalore, India in his keynote address said that the world has nearly US$ 400 billion legal spend in the world and that about 40% of this is spent by the US. "LPO services are at a budding stage with relatively consistent market growth since its start in 1997. Since then LPO providers have established themselves in Canada, India, the Philippines, the United States, Israel and Latin America. They traditionally offer services in the areas of document review, legal research and writing, drafting of pleadings and briefs, and patent services outsourcing," he explained.
He said that LPO is growing in popularity as law firms and corporate legal departments seek to minimize costs, increase flexibility and expand their in-house capabilities.
He said that LPO promotes ample time savings for document review, regulatory compliance, legal research and other legal projects. Rather than attorneys working long hours at high rates in the US, LPO is a synchronized global effort.
Other speakers noted that LPO’S potential benefits to Sri Lanka are enormous in terms of foreign exchange earnings and employment opportunities.
This conference was organized by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) together with the International Association of Young Lawyers (AIJA), the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the Legal Solutions Forum (LSF). According to BASL President Shibly Aziz this conference was aimed at creating awareness about Sri Lanka as a preferred destination of choice for the LPO business which is an objective of the LSF.