THE ABA (AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION) JOURNAL

Hollywood Outsourcing Higher-End Legal Work to India

Nov 12, 2007
By Martha Neil

Even with the millions that a successful movie can make, Hollywood producers are watching their legal costs. So, instead of having high-priced U.S. law firms handle all of their entertainment matters, some reportedly are starting to send some relatively high-end legal work to attorneys in India.

While outsourcing "back office" work such as document reviews is fairly commonplace today, Indian lawyers working on planned Hollywood productions are conducting legal research, writing legal opinions, drafting motions and copyright clauses, preparing documents for insurance coverage, and processing visas for Hollywood actors, producers and directors, reports the Times of India.

Such work is being handled, for instance, by Mysore-based SDD Global Solutions, a 40-attorney legal process outsourcing firm, the newspaper says.  SDD Global was founded by Smith Dornan Dehn, a Manhattan-based international media law firm.

"Getting all those legal requirements done in the US can be terribly expensive, considering lawyers have to be paid between $450 and $650 an hour," reports the Times.  But, attorney Sajai Singh of J. Sagar Associates tells the newspaper, in India "the same kind of work would be paid at the rate of $60-$100 per hour."


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