According to a recent survey of in-house legal department heads at hundreds of leading companies in the United States, only 30% would recommend their primary outside law firm to others.1  Even more astonishing, fully 53% of them fired their primary outside law firm during the last 18 months.2

In an article in the September 18, 2006 issue of Business Week (“Let’s Offshore the Lawyers -- Dupont Is Farming Out Legal Services to Asia, and Saving a Bundle”), the magazine reported as follows: “Few industries seem more ripe for radical restructuring than legal services.”

As the The New York Times reported in another recent article on “ legal outsourcing”:

“There is a joke told by corporate general counsels: Every year they do not set a budget for spending on outside law firms – and every year they exceed it. So perhaps it should be no surprise that some corporate clients are pushing their outside law firms to assign an outside provider to conduct legal research. The shifting of assignments from a law firm's junior associates, whose time costs hundreds of dollars a hour, to a company that charges a flat rate for each research project calls into question exactly what the law firm's role is…. The development may be an ominous sign for the legal profession, whose members derive much of their otherwise mysterious prestige from mastery of arcane case law and dry-as-dirt statutory language.”3

In yet another article on the subject, The New York Times reported as follows:

“The reason for the shift echoes the reason companies are sending other work abroad: they save substantial amounts of money. Some companies say they can reduce certain legal costs by as much as 50 percent, and receive work that rivals what they can obtain in the United States. According to Dennis Archer, the President of the American Bar Association, ‘The need to cut costs reaches across many departments, so it should be no surprise that it goes to the legal department as well’…. ‘There is no problem with
off-shoring,’ said Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law and a legal ethics expert, ‘because even though the lawyer in India is not authorized by an American state to practice law, the review by American lawyers sanitizes the process.’ ”4

Bradford W. Hildebrandt, chairman of the legal consulting firm Hildebrandt International Inc., which estimates U.S. companies can save 25% to 35% by farming legal work to Asia, has stated that "ultimately, there may be little limit to what can go offshore."5

Indeed, companies such as GE, Microsoft, Allstate, Cisco, Morgan Stanley, Oracle, DuPont and American Express already have assigned legal work to India, because they know that in India, the talent pool is outstanding, the cost of living is low, and the quality of service is high.6   For example, for the cost of one paralegal in the United States, eight eager, outstanding, and better-qualified lawyers can be hired in India to perform the same work and more.

Financial experts agree that the legal services industry in the United States, which comprises 77% of the industry worldwide, is on the verge of a seismic change. In particular, off-shoring of legal work to India is uniformly projected to grow by several hundred per cent within the next few years. Companies and law firms that do not take advantage of this trend are likely to find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

For those companies and law firms that are ready to take advantage of this paradigm shift, SDD Global stands ready to help. In its 2006 bulletin on legal off-shoring in India, the financial and market research company, ValueNotes, listed the formation of SDD Global as the top news item of the year. We have developed our strategy and services to the point where we are now a leader in the legal process off-shoring industry in several ways:

1. The Only Legal Outsourcing ( Legal Services KPO ) Managed by an American Law Firm

First, as discussed above, SDD Global is the only Legal Outsourcing ( Legal Services KPO ) in India that is managed by an American law firm. For our Western clients, this means both quality assurance and accountability. Our legal associates are top law graduates and experienced legal advocates and/or former law professors from some of the best law firms and law schools in India, and those associates in turn are trained and supervised by respected U.S. and/or U.K. attorneys or solicitors who have been practicing at the top of their respective fields. Those licensed Western attorneys and solicitors are accountable to our Western clients, who need not worry that their contact is limited to foreign employees on the other end of the world.

2. One of Only a Few Focusing on High-End Services

Second, SDD Global is among the small number of pioneers in focusing on higher-value services, such as legal research, legal drafting, immigration visa processing, intellectual property registrations, anti-infringement operations, insurance claims administration, and a host of other high-end functions.

3. The Only High-End Legal Outsourcing ( Legal Services KPO ) in the Best Location

Third, SDD Global has established its operations center in Mysore, now the ideal business location in India.  As accurately predicted by one of India’s two major newspapers last April, “the city’s credentials as an emerging centre for knowledge-based services, and the next major hub for business process outsourcing, will be further vindicated when New York-based SmithDehn LLP launches its legal service off-shoring business from Mysore." ( "U.S. Law Firm to Off-Shore Services from Mysore,” The Hindu, India’s National Newspaper, April 28, 2006, page 3.) Although it is only two to three hours from Bangalore, the beautiful city of Mysore stands apart from India’s congested and increasingly inflation-ridden major urban centers. Yet it is in an area that hosts many of the universities and law colleges that serve as incubators for thousands of the best-qualified job candidates in the legal and information technology fields every year.

4. Defying the Stereotype of “Outsourcing” U.S. Jobs

Fourth, in another innovation, and in keeping with the ethics of our practice, we are defying the stereotype of the “outsourcing” of Western jobs. Indeed, our services allow U.S. and U.K. clients to increase profits and growth. For example, instead of laying off attorneys in the U.S., our parent law firm has increased its number of attorneys and has improved their skills by leveraging their talents through the influx of top-notch legal support abroad. The clients of SDD Global benefit from the high morale of SmithDehn LLP’s U.S. and U.K. personnel and the unleashing of talent that we have facilitated on three continents.

5. One of Only Two Legal Outsourcing Companies in India Handling U.S. Immigration

Fifth, SDD Global is one of only two Legal Outsourcing companies in India that provide U.S. immigration visa processing and related immigration services. With our Mysore advantage, and with SmithDehn LLP’s excellent immigration legal services operation in the United States, led by veteran U.S. immigration lawyer, Priya Kumar, SDD Global is in the process of becoming a U.S. immigration law powerhouse, with the capability of expertly and expeditiously handling thousands of visa and naturalization applications per year. Given our extensive contacts with solicitors in the United Kingdom, and with our new London office, we intend to assume the same role there.

On the subject of cost, the financial advantages that can accrue to the clients of SDD Global can be readily seen not only in the well-known differences between salaries and costs of living among the workforces of the U.S. and India, but also in the price of office space, which is ultimately paid for by a law firm’s clients. Many traditional law firms locate virtually all of their personnel in relatively expensive offices in the largest cities in the United States and the United Kingdom. This custom has led to a situation in which most of each dollar that these firms charge their clients pays for office rent. Although SmithDehn LLP too has offices in Manhattan, most of its office space is located elsewhere, especially in India, where the employees of SDD Global work in state-of-the-art facilities at 1/43rd the cost of comparable space in the U.S. This is a major part of the way we maintain our assurance to clients that they are paying for legal services, not real estate. SDD Global stands ready to offer that same benefit to other law firms and their clients.

India will be the leader in off-shoring of legal services, not only because of cost benefits, but also because of quality. For example, of particular relevance to higher-end legal services, is the fact that India, unlike China and other off-shoring destinations, mandates that all higher education and court proceedings be conducted in English, such that there is a vast pool of fluent English-speaking job candidates.

SDD Global in particular has developed procedures to ensure that its quality control, security, and efficiency are unsurpassed in the United States or anywhere in the world.

In general, with the possible exception of some outmoded law firms that refuse to change, ours is an “all-winners” approach:

A. Western clients win because services are handled better, faster, and much less expensively by SDD Global in Mysore, allowing clients not only to increase profits, but to increase their rate of growth;

B. Motivated Western employees and lawyers win, because they can upgrade their skills and assume roles of greater responsibility, as their companies and law firms grow;

C. Indian employees win because their already existing talents and skills are unleashed and rewarded like never before, and because many of them can return to their families in Mysore, from low-quality, high-priced, bigger cities where they reluctantly moved for career reasons; and

D. The global community wins, as East and West develop synergistically, each relying on the other’s strengths.

Our mission is to help positively change the way in which legal services are provided in the Western world. We intend to be a leader in an industry-wide paradigm shift – one that will result in a dramatic increase in quality, efficiency, responsiveness, and cost-effectiveness.

What Toyota has been to the automobile industry; what Google has accomplished in the realm of Internet searching; what Infosys has done for the software business; that is what SDD Global wants to help achieve in the world of legal services – nothing short of a seismic change.

We envision an industry in which artificial barriers across countries and continents do not keep the most talented and enthusiastic people from doing the work that they do best. We are pioneers in a new, worldwide legal landscape, where offices and employees will be located in places determined by the actual needs of clients, rather than the habits of law firms that do not wish to change. We want to help fashion a world in which widely differing and even opposite time zones are not an obstacle, but an opportunity for clients. We envisage the extension of the “work day” in such a manner as to redefine the term, allowing clients not only to sleep, but to sleep more soundly, knowing that their needs are being met around the clock. We foresee a radical change for the better in the way clients are billed. We seek to create a new worldwide standard, under which clients are charged reasonably, and only for actual services provided. We provide an alternative to the prevalent system of hourly billing, in which inefficiency is often handsomely rewarded, and efficiency often discouraged.

We believe that the nurturing and careful implementation of new ideas in service of the needs of clients is the key to business success. We are persuaded that in order for this to happen, there must be a work environment in which the innate talents and worth of every individual are not only respected, but actively supported and encouraged.

We acknowledge and appreciate the interconnectedness of all people, nations, cultures, and events, such that, for example, any one individual employee, through his or her ideas and actions, can have a profound effect on our company and even the world. We are believers in social responsibility on the part of the company, and personal responsibility on the part of every member of it.

We believe that work is not merely a means to a weekend, or a ticket to worldly success. We see work as a noble calling to service – an endeavor vital to the human spirit. We think it should be part of daily interactions with clients, colleagues, family, friends, and even the company. We see any non-harmful job or task, no matter how seemingly small, as an opportunity for service, and one that can and should be fulfilled with excellence and healthy pride.

We believe that an important part of honoring the dignity of work is paying for it. We intend to continue our role as one of the highest paying employers in Mysore, even after large multi-national companies, such as Microsoft, Dell, and Intel (all of whom have acquired many acres of land here), follow us to Mysore in droves.

We are convinced that the best marketing, and ultimately the only kind that truly works, is a job well done. We think that jobs are done best by well-rounded individuals of integrity, and in a friendly and supportive environment.

We seek to implement these beliefs at every level of our company. It is our conviction that to the extent that this is accomplished, all else will follow.