Ohio

ABA Endorses Outsourcing Legal Work

By Cleveland Law Library

Unbelievably, the American Bar Association has just issued an ethics opinion endorsing the outsourcing of legal work. Ethics Opinion 08-451 indicates that legal outsourcing to India and elsewhere is permissible as long as client confidentiality and attorney-client privileges are protected. Lawyers that outsource also have to make sure to retain foreign lawyers who are trained and competent and charge reasonable rates. The biggest use of outsourcing has been to send large document review projects overseas at a supposed cost of the fraction domestic lawyers would otherwise charge clients. However, according to an article on law.com, the biggest challengers to this practice are U.S. domestic lawyers who, often on a contract basis, perform large-scale document review. They are naturally upset about their work going elsewhere in an industry the article indicates is growing.

Full post as published by Cleveland Law Library Weblog on September 04, 2008 (boomark / email).