Recent recessionary cost pressures, together with a shift of power from lawyers to clients, means that New Mexico lawyers and law firms, like others in the US and the UK, are required to offer more value for less in fees. This, in turn, has resulted in an embrace of offshore legal outsourcing by New Mexico lawyers and clients alike. In Albuquerque and elsewhere in New Mexico, several have turned to the world's top-ranked, full-service legal process outsourcing (LPO) company, according to a customer satisfaction survey of 6,547 clients conducted by The Black Book of Outsourcing.

SDD Global Solutions, the only legal outsourcing company / LPO managed by an American law firm, and the leading high-end, off-shored legal services company, provides outsourcing services to corporate clients, law firms and individual clients in Albuquerque and other cities in New Mexico. Our outsourced services include high-end work such as legal research, drafting and analysis, contract preparation and management, filing applications for U.S. and U.K. immigration visas, and handling matters related to intellectual property.

In particular, SDD Global's well-trained litigation support team has experience in dealing with various New Mexico state and federal legal issues. We have done extensive legal research on various claims under New Mexico law. The claims have included breach of contract, breach of rights of publicity, defamation, deceptive business and trade practices under the New Mexico statutes and the Lanham Act, fraud, copyright infringement, prima facie tort, indecency and wrongful death.

For example, we were hired by an entertainment company to conduct a multi-jurisdictional survey on enforceability of consent agreements in each state including New Mexico. We were also hired to conduct a 50-state survey on laws that penalize a company for failure to register to do business in that state.

Our clients save tremendously on costs by outsourcing legal work to SDD Global. The difference between the Indian and Western legal services cost structure allows SDD Global's clients to save up to 90%, depending on the service. The vast majority of the off-shored legal work at SDD Global is done by our Indian attorneys with supervision by our U.S. and U.K. licensed attorneys. Again, this drives down the costs significantly.

Another significant saving is in the cost of the office space. In Albuquerque, for example, the client charge involves not only to the attorney's fee, but also rent for office space. The cost of office space in Albuquerque ranges from $10 to $13 per square foot. By contrast, in Mysore, India, where we are headquartered, the cost of office space is about 20 times lower. We charge our clients for the legal outsourcing services we provide, and our fees are not inflated by real estate costs.

According to the American Bar Association Ethics Opinion 08-451, entitled "Lawyer's Obligations When Outsourcing Legal and Nonlegal Support Services," U.S. lawyers and firms can outsource legal work, provided that they adhere to ethics rules on competence, supervision, protection of confidential information, reasonable fees, and not assisting unauthorized practice of law. The ABA Ethics Committee also considered legal outsourcing to be a "salutary trend in a global economy" and a favorable economic measure for small firms that do not have sufficient staff to handle complex litigation work.

In accordance with the codes of professional conduct and ethics, we do not practice law. Instead, we provide litigation support, legal research, draft court papers and other tasks that are allowed by the ethics rules. If clients need legal advice, or need an attorney to make an appearance in court, tasks which only a U.S. licensed attorney can perform, then those clients can obtain such services from our parent firm SmithDehn LLP or from any other law firm.