Cost pressures due to the recent recession, combined with a new, client-centric environment, in which Georgia lawyers and law firms, similar those throughout the US and the UK, are required to offer greater value for lower fees, has led to an upsurge in offshore legal outsourcing for Georgia clients.  In particular, lawyers, software firms, media companies, and prominent individuals in Atlanta and elsewhere in Georgia have turned to the world's top-ranked, full-service legal process outsourcing (LPO) company, according to a comprehensive survey of 6,547 clients by The Black Book of Outsourcing.

SDD Global Solutions, the only legal outsourcing company in India managed by an American law firm (SmithDehn LLP), surpassed over 2,700 vendors in this client satisfaction survey, even ranking ahead of IT giants such as HP, Infosys, IBM, Microsoft, TCS, and Wipro, as well as ahead of all other legal process outsourcing companies in India. For its Georgia clients, SDD Global offers high-quality litigation support including legal research, analysis, and drafting contract drafting and management; intellectual property services, such as trademark search, title search, trademark registration, copyright registration and other patent services; immigration visa processing and related immigration services; and a host of other high-end functions at approximately one-tenth of the traditional cost.

For Atlanta clients, we have done comprehensive legal research on various state and federal claims, and we have drafted litigation papers in a variety of Georgia cases. Also related to Georgia, we have conducted a multi-jurisdictional survey on enforceability of consent agreements and “door closing statutes,” for a large media company.

SDD Global's clients save up to 90 per cent on their legal costs with no compromise in quality. Because SDD Global is a subsidiary of a respected US law firm, there is total quality assurance and accountability. Our cost-efficient, US-licensed attorneys supervise and edit the work of our Indian attorneys. We maintain quality and security controls that meet the standards of top-tier law firms in Atlanta and elsewhere in the United States..

Another saving is in the price of office space. SDD Global is located in Mysore, where the cost of office space is dramatically less than the cost of office space in Atlanta and other Georgia cities. The cost of office space in Atlanta ranges from $12 to $17 per square foot. By contrast, the cost-per-square-foot of our office building in Mysore about 20 times lower. Due to the low cost of living and low cost of doing business in Mysore, we significantly reduce costs for our clients.

On the subject of speed, the advantages are significant. The outsourcing teams at SDD Global Solutions are half a world away from the United States. As a result, when the work is off-shored to us at the end of the day in Georgia, a fresh round of legal work on the day shift in India is just beginning, in a time zone that is essentially a day ahead.

Our Indian attorneys are capable of handling any complex litigation work like U.S. attorneys, except for providing legal advice and representing clients in court. In cases where clients need legal advice, or representation in court, our parent law firm or any other law firm of the client's choosing could provide such services.

On August 5, 2008, the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility rendered its opinion ( 08-451 ) on legal services outsourcing. The ABA opinion entitled "Lawyer's Obligations When Outsourcing Legal and Nonlegal Support Services," allows U.S. lawyers and firms to outsource legal work to domestic and foreign attorneys and paralegals. The ethics committee considers the legal outsourcing trend a "salutary one for our globalized economy." It also states that outsourcing can reduce client costs and enable small firms to provide labor intensive services, even though the firms might not maintain sufficient ongoing staff to handle the work.

At SDD Global, we can accomplish all of the above and more, for clients in Atlanta and anywhere else in Georgia.