When Hollywood Is in a Legal Bind, It Calls Mysore

Tuesday, December 11, 2007, by Bhargavi Kerur

Al Pacino’s new film, and a reality TV serial on rookie cops, are getting legal help from Mysore. An outsourcing firm based in the city is insuring the series and doing the legal groundwork for them. A movie crew having problems using cars with Chicago Police logo is already thankful to Mysore.

While outsourcing back-office work such as document reviews, drafting and application to Indian legal processing offices is not new, lawyers in the royal city of Karnataka are conducting research, writing legal opinions, drafting motions and copyright clauses, preparing documents for insurance coverage, getting permissions for locations and materials for shooting and processing visas for Hollywood actors, producers and directors.
                    
Increasing business opportunities and the availability of cheap labour and office space has prompted SDD Global, the famous law arm of the Manhattan-based international media and intellectual property firm Smith Dehn LLP, to establish its high-end outsourcing unit in Mysore.
                    
“Production houses engage law firms to know the kind of legal issues they could face. Permits to shoot at different locations, drafting copyright clauses, signing contracts with actors and crew members, preparing documents for insurance covers, research on potential legal issues, framing legal guidelines for filming, are the various kinds of support we provide from our Mysore office,” Russell Smith, chairman and president of SDD Global and founder of SmithDehn, told DNA.
                    
Legal process outsourcing (LPO) experts say India has moved up the value chain in the sector in past one year.
                    
“A few companies have been there in the high-end LPO business for some years now, but a large volume of high-end work has come to India only in the past one year. SDD Global has attracted the most high-end work,” said the vice-president of Rainmaker T&R, a leading legal recruitment and training firm in Mumbai.
                    
Most of the legal work for Borat, the financially most successful comedy film, was done in Mysore. Similarly, the award-winning film Death of a President, a fictional documentary on the assassination of the 43rd US President, George W Bush, was successfully released with low-cost legal assistance from SDD Global. Of late, lawyers at SDD are doing legal research to help defend an HBO TV series facing a court case in Los Angeles.
                    
“Unless a movie has a sound legal contract, it does not get an insurance cover in the US. There are issues such as people trying to sue a successful movie to make a quick buck. But we have challenged such people in the court of law. After 9/11, filming police cars was not permitted. The producers of a movie bought over 30 cars with Chicago Police logo. While shooting, they were stopped by the local police. From Mysore, we sorted out the problem,” Smith says.