Approval of Legal Outsourcing
Thanks to Jordan Furlong of Law 21, I found this recent article from the American Bar Association, which is very positive sign of the growing acceptance of legal outsourcing, including outsourcing to non-lawyer support staff such as virtual legal assistants and virtual paralegals.
Lawyers with concerns about the ethics should be reassured by the ABA’s opinion on the matter. A couple of points noted in the ABA article:
U.S. lawyers are free to outsource legal work, including to lawyers or nonlawyers outside the country, if they adhere to ethics rules requiring competence, supervision, protection of confidential information, reasonable fees and not assisting unauthorized practice of law.
And this:
Outsourcing can reduce client costs and enable small firms to provide labor intensive services such as large, discovery intense litigation, even though the firms might not maintain sufficient ongoing staff to handle the work, according to a new ethics opinion issued today. Ethics Opinion 08-451 details ethics obligations of lawyers and firms that do elect to outsource legal work.
With a recognition of the cost benefits to law firms AND approval as to the ethics of legal outsourcing I think more and more lawfirms will start to take advantage of outsourcing arrangements. 2009 may just be a real turning point in the outsourcing field.
Laurie Mapp, Owner Halo Secretarial Services Contact us for more information on virtual legal assistance!
>
-
I agree that outsourcing is really taking off, and the ABA’s new opinion will likely give the trend a boost.
You can find my detailed analysis of the ABA opinion on outsourcing at http://legalresearchandwritingpro.com/blog/2008/08/28/aba-formal-op-08-451-good-news-for-us-based-independent-contract-lawyers/
September 11th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Subscribe by RSS
