By Debra Cassens on May 11, 2008

….[There is a] booming new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers.

….Legal process outsourcing is being called the next big thing in Indian business. It marks India's climb up the chain of outsourcing jobs -- from low-end, back-office service functions in call centers to high-value, skilled legal work.

….Indian workers who once helped with legal transcription now offer services that include research, litigation support, document discovery and review, drafting of contracts and patent writing. The industry offers an attractive career path for many of the 300,000 Indians who enroll in law schools every year. India and the United States share a common-law legal system rooted in Britain’s, and both conduct proceedings in English.

…."Ninety percent of a lawyer's work is legal research and drafting, and all this can now be offshored to India," said Russell Smith, who works for the Manhattan law firm, SmithDehn LLP, and who went to India to set up an outsourcing company in 2006. "A large portion of our fees in the U.S. is due to office rent, which is 43 times more expensive in New York than at our subsidiary’s location in India. Also, it is often a big decision to hire one attorney in the U.S. In India, we can hire 10 at a time and train them all at once."

Smith's Indian company, SDD Global Solutions, handled much of the legal work for the film "Borat." Other clients include the Washington-based firm Appleton & Associates and U.S. movie studios and television networks.

"Our people in India can do everything from here, except sign the opinion letter and appear in an American court," he said.

Smith's Indian office recently researched and drafted the motion papers for the dismissal of a libel case against the producers of HBO’s "Da Ali G Show." Smith said that if it had not been for the more efficient option of outsourcing, the producers would have settled….

Maharaja of Media

by Jessica Jones

Russell Smith is only rarely in the New York headquarters of SmithDehn LLP, the firm that bears his name. He spends most days working from his Mysore, India, office, where he first went to study yoga. Before that, he was stationed at his beach house in Montauk, Long Island.

But in March he was in the the ten-lawyer media and intellectual property firm's generic-looking New York conference room. Among the lawyers seated there were British and Irish transplants. A poster on the wall behind them read “Who be dis Ali G?” Ali G, aka Sacha Baron Cohen, the star of Da Ali G Show and the lawsuit-laden film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, is one of Smith's clients.

But it's not Borat business that brings Smith, 51, to New York. It's India. The team has spent the past eight days meeting with movie studios and publishers to market its new idea: outsourcing legal work to India. Smith has opened a 40-lawyer Indian outsourcing subsidiary, SDD Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The lawyers do legal research, draft pleadings, and memoranda, and process U.S. visas and health insurance claims, all for $30-$90 an hour.

Smith Dornan, founded in 1996, is not a traditional law firm. That's probably because its founder, Smith, isn't a traditional lawyer. “He just sort of refuses to conform to the rigid legal stereotype,” says Aaron Georghiades, executive vice president of SDD Global.

He made partner at Frankfurt, Garbus, Klein & Selz (now Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz) in 1994, but quickly felt the need to move on. “I began to think I didn't want to be a lawyer anymore,” says Smith. His solution: a yearlong sabbatical on the northwest coast of Ireland.

Smith intended to spend his time in Ireland, a country he had been visiting for years, engaged in quiet contmeplation. It didn't work out that way. “People would just be knocking on my door bringing a bottle of whisky.” He did manage to write a novel, but the book was never published—mostly, says Smith, because he wasn't a good writer.

He came back to the states in 1996 and started his own firm. His first case involved Rent, the musical. Smith represented Lynn Thomson, who claimed she was denied royalties and credit for her work on the Broadway show. Smith won. Next he tackled a libel case for Roberts Reinhart Publishers of Boulder. He hired Eamonn Dornan, the head of the legal department at the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, a non-profit organisation for Irish immigrants, and the firm was born.

But Smith was restless. He'd been practicing yoga for many years and in 2004 he went to Mysore to study “at the feet” of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. After many visits to the city he began to notice both the many talented lawyers and the low cost of doing business. In April 2006 Smith launched SDD Global.

Smith Dornan now represents 12 television series, as well as Home Box Office, Inc., Sony Pictures Television, and the William J. Clinton Foundation. Since he works on Indian time, Smith gets woken up most nights. The price of not conforming.

By Rama Lakshmi on May 11, 2008

The market for outsourced legal work is booming in India. While lawyers there are doing a lot of routine work, they are also handling some interesting legal matters, including work for the makers of movies and television shows….

While Indian lawyers handle a lot of document review, they also do legal research and draft contracts, said Russell Smith of the Indian outsourcing company SDD Global Solutions. Indian lawyers even did legal work on Borat and drafted a motion defending HBO's Da Ali G Show and seeking the dismissal of a libel suit against the show’s producers, Smith said.

"Our people in India can do everything from there, except sign the opinion letter and appear in an American court," Smith told the Post. Because of the low cost, the producers of Da Ali G Show opted to fight the lawsuit rather than settle, he said….

BANGALORE: Hollywood's descending on the royal city of Mysore!  Not to put the city's palaces as backdrops for its movies. But to outsource legal research, legal analysis, legal opinion and contract drafting services.

Production houses like 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures and Universal Studios have roped in Mysore-headquartered SDD Global Solutions to support the legal requirements of their movie releases.

SDD Global, a legal process outsourcing (LPO) firm with 40 attorneys, is owned by SmithDehn LLP, a Manhattan-based international media and intellectual property law firm.  SDD Global is funded by investors from Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Barclay's Capital.

Russell Smith, president of SDD Global, told ToI that a large team of legal attorneys from India and the US is sitting in Mysore and is busy preparing arguments and counter-arguments to support some of the most complex legal issues in Hollywood.

"We just signed to work on three global movie releases. We can't reveal the names now. We will handle pre-and post-production legal issues," said Smith, who is a US-licensed attorney and litigator.

BANGALORE: SDD Global Solutions, a legal services outsourcing company based in Mysore, has announced that it is getting funding of $2 million from SFP Priority, part of the SFP group. Part of the company's strategic plan to expand and consolidate its position, the funding will be used to hire additional Western-licensed attorneys to augment both the company's employee training programme in India and its range of services offered and expanding its global marketing efforts. Established in April 2006, SDD Global Solutions has previously received equity funding from investors including Merrill Lynch, Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs, and Barclays Capital, as well as a debt facility from State Bank of India.

SHELLEY SINGH
[ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007 03:13:58 AM]

Some of the most interesting legal matters concerning movies are being handled by a 40 people team out of a Mysore based three-storey, legal process outsourcing (LPO) firm, SDD Global Solutions.

Sample the action: the team is doing legal research for Al Pacino’s next film. All litigation concerning Borat, the comedy film which grossed $300 million is also being done here. The company, Smith Dornan Dehn (SDD) Global Solutions, has been founded by SDD, a Manhattan-based international media and intellectual property firm.

Its clients include HBO, Sony Pictures Television, Universal Pictures, MTV Networks, Channel Four TV (UK), American Broadcasting Companies, and many more. In an interaction with ET, SDD Global Solutions president and chairman Russell Smith tells how he first came to Mysore to learn Yoga and ended up starting the LPO firm. Excerpts:

What kind of clients does SDD Global handle and who are the investors in the company?

SDD Global Solutions is a 24/365, legal process offshoring firm incorporated and headquartered in Mysore. It is the only LPO in India managed, formed and majority-owned, by SDD, a Manhattan-based firm, with most of its clients in New York, Los Angeles and London. We work for over 100 clients, including Universal Pictures, HBO, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, and former US president Bill Clinton’s organisation, the Clinton Foundation.

Funded by State Bank of India and investors from Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Barclay’s Capital, SDD Global provides professional solutions, by leveraging information technology and a high-quality workforce for clients worldwide.

At our Mysore headquarters, we are handling some of the most high-profile entertainment and media litigations in the US, as well as processing visas for actors, directors, producers and other professionals needed by our US clients.

Shelley Singh, New Delhi

Indian Legal Firms Shy Away from LPO Biz

LAW firms across India Inc aren't excited about running the legal process offshoring (LPO) business.  While the opportunity is huge, lawyers who have tried their hand at it say “law firms will not be able to create a great LPO.” This is despite the fact that back office legal services is a $250-billion global business annually.

The reasons are not far to seek: law firms were contracting work for global clients at billing rates between $20-100 per hour. But for similar work that the client wanted to be done in India-- say, litigation support, legal research, patent filing or drafting documents for incorporating a company in India – the firms were charging $200-$300 per hour. Lest they impact their own business, they have decided against pursuing LPO work. Besides, lawyers see themselves as consultants and not running a back office desk for overseas clients.

LPOs to Add More Punch to India Action

SUSHMITA MOHAPATRA & P P THIMMAYA

[ MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2007 12:52:30 AM]

BANGALORE: The legal process outsourcing (LPO) sector in the country is likely to see more action in the coming months. As of now only around 30% of the top ten Indian BPO players have evinced interest in entering this segment. But, according to industry experts, big players like Infosys, Wipro and others are studying this model and could look at entering this business in the near future.

“Demand for LPOs are on the rise. It makes sense for the BPOs to enter this segment because the profit margins in LPOs are higher. And legal-process outsourcing is part of high-end knowledge process outsourcing, which many of these BPOs are already into,” said Russell Smith, president and chairman, SDD Global Solutions.

However, this buoyant sector could present many challenges to the BPO sector, the biggest among them is finding the requisite talent. “Finding someone with domain expertise is difficult and to find experienced management is likely to be a bigger challenge, said Matthew Banks, senior vice-president, legal services, Integreon.

Also, with LPO firms across the country having smaller teams and serve niche clients, so defining a suitable business model is important for these large-scale BPOs. “There is huge potential in the LPO segment, but there is gestation period of about 3 years that slows down the growth.

Many of the LPO companies are more specialised and boutique kind of firms which are doing higher-end work and having smaller teams. It could be very difficult for the BPOs to scale up the operations in such a scenario,” said Avinash Vashistha, CEO, Tholons. LPO is a business segment pegged at $3-4 billion by Nasscom.

See original article here

Screen Size Just Got Wider

After traditional offshoring, it is the turn of legal and real estate services to be outsourced to India.
October 3, 2007, by Nandita Dutta

October 3, 2007, by Nandita Dutta

Fortune 500 firms driving LPO industry

Praveen Bose / Chennai/ Bangalore August 08, 2007

Fortune 500 firms, a US based software firm promoted by a person of Indian origin with a development centre in Bangalore and a legal training firm based out of Mumbai are driving legal process outsourcing (LPO) to India.  

LPO encompasses contract drafting and review, litigation support, intellectual property, and legal research and drafting.  

Sony Pictures had to prepare an ‘opinion letter’ (outlining the activity and the risks involved) for insurance firms in order to secure cover for shooting a movie, and the movie’s fate hinged on the letter and the cover.  

Preparing the letter was a 400-man hour job which would have cost $250,000 to get done in the US and Sony gave it a second thought. Eventually, the job was done in India for $43,000.  

In India, lawyers are paid $30-90 per hour whereas the cost in the US is $300 an hour. The English speaking countries account for $185 billion of the $250 billion global legal industry. Indians who are familiar with both the English language and the Anglo-Saxon legal system are equipped to grab a share of this business.  

The Indian LPO industry is valued around $145 million per year by Value Research, an independent provider of investment information. There are over 30 entities in India engaging in LPO work for mostly US and a few British law firms, according to a lawyer active in the sphere.  

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 SmithDehn LLP, 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."

US Corporates Outsource Legal Work to India

by Anjali Prayag

Bangalore, June 15, 2007.  It's not just law firms or individual attorneys that are outsourcing their legal processes to hundreds of lawyers engaged in LPO in the country.

In fact, when large US corporates are fighting a case in the US, the company's legal department at its headquarters would need just one lawyer to appear in court while its entire legal department is stationed in India.

Mr Russell Smith, President and Chairman of SDD Global Solutions, said: "That's because most of the research and paperwork for large American corporates are being done in India."

SDD Global, a Mysore-based LPO employing close to 40 lawyers and on the verge of ramping up to 200, is doing high-end legal document work for companies such as Calvin Klein, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, HBO and John Wiley and Sons.

Star Litigator and Former Cochran Firm Partner, Kwarma Vanderpuye, Becomes Senior Vice President and General Counsel at SDD Global

NEW YORK, NY, Nov 28 (MARKET WIRE) -- SDD Global Solutions, the leader in high-end legal services offshoring, is pleased to announce the addition of Kwarma Vanderpuye to its team as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Ms. Vanderpuye will be responsible for training, recruiting, quality control and marketing for SDD Global in the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia. In addition to her role as Senior Vice President and General Counsel, she will continue to maintain her active litigation practice in New York, with enhanced support from SDD Global.

Ms. Vanderpuye brings extensive and well-known litigation experience to thecompany. Prior to joining SDD Global, she was unanimously elected as the first African-American partner at Jones, Hirsch, Connors, & Bull, a prominent New York defense firm. After ten years at Jones Hirsch, she became a partner in The Cochran Firm, at the invitation of the late Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Most recently, she was head of the litigation department at the McMillan Firm. Ms. Vanderpuye received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and graduated from Howard Law School. She is an activemember of the United Nations Association as well as the International and American Bar Associations.

A Different Tune

If India was synonymous only to outsourcing tech jobs, this could well change in the future! Hollywood is now using the legal expertise from our very own Mysore!

IT ADDA Correspondent
itadda@mid-day.com

SDD Global Solutions, the only legal process outsourcing company in India managed by a U.S. law firm, announced that it is now performing, and will continue to perform, high-end legal work for major Hollywood movie studios and television companies, on everything from blockbusters by 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, and Universal Pictures, to hit television shows by HBO. SDD Global Solutions is working on major Hollywood movies and television programming from its headquarters in Mysore, supported by its rapidly growing staff of Indian lawyers.

The Chairman of SDD Global Solutions Pvt Ltd, Mr Russell Smith, also dubbed as "The Maharaja of Media" by The American Lawyer, said, “Nearly all of the legal work for ‘Borat,’ the most financially successful comedy film of all time, was done from Mysore. Similarly the award-winning film, ‘Death of a President’, featuring the fictional assassination of U.S. President Bush, could not have been released, without the rapid, expert, and low-cost legal assistance that SDD Global provided.”

Legal work of Hollywood movies from Mysore
Thursday, June 14 2007 17:12(IST)

Bangalore, Jun 14: SDD Global Solutions, the only legal process outsourcing company in India managed by a US law firm, today announced that it was providing high end legal work to major Hollywood movie studios and television companies, on everything from blockbusters to television shows.

Head quartered in Mysore, the Company was supported by rapidly growing staff of Indian lawyers, SDD Global Solutions said in a release here.

Chairman of SDD Global Solutions Pvt Ltd, Russell Smith, dubbed as ''The Maharaja of Media'' by The American Lawyer, said in the release ''nearly all of the legal work for 'Borat,' the most financially successful comedy film of all time, was done from Mysore''. Similarly, the award-winning film, 'Death of a President', featuring the fictional assassination of U.S. President Bush, could not have been released, without the rapid, expert, and low-cost legal assistance that SDD Global provided, he added. SDD Global Solutions is helping get insurance for Al Pacino's next film, and doing the legal groundwork for a new reality TV series about rookie cops. ''There is business coming in to SDD Global where we will be doing work on a major new motion picture from Universal Pictures. Another large Hollywood studio has asked us to handle thousands of U.S. immigration visas for its actors and directors'' he said adding ''Our clients are happy to have their legal work done in the most cost-effective and efficient location in the world right now, which is our office in Mysore''.

The Company's employees also help prepare legal road maps to help film and television producers avoid trouble and obtain needed insurance. With the influx of clients, SDD Global last month moved to its own 330-employee building in Mysore and was looking to hire over 200 recruits within the next 12 months.


UNI

See original article here

Four years ago, Russell Smith, a legal eagle, popularly dubbed the 'Maharaja of Media' in the US for handling clients ranging from Hollywood producers to television serial makers, came to Mysore in search of an Ashtanga Yoga master. He not only found an eminent teacher, but also discovered that the former royal capital can service US legal practices. His chance discovery has today turned into a resounding success.

            In Smith's own account, it all happened because of Yoga. “Why did I come to Mysore? Because I am a yoga student. I came to the city four years ago to study with Ashtanga yoga master Sri K Pattabhi Jois,” explains Smith. “For the first couple of years, I had no idea of setting up any firm here. But I could not help but notice how easy it was for me to maintain my US law practice from here, using e-mail and a cell phone. I was even able to get some new clients, such as Sony pictures, without ever meeting anyone in person. I realised that except for walking into court (which could be done by my associates), all of the legal work for my law firm's clients could be done from India.”
            Then one Friday, back in the US, he was swamped with matter relating to some litigation. He needed to get some subpoenas drafted and served by Monday. “Because I am not much of a 'boss', I did not direct one of our junior associates to work on the weekend. Instead, I gingerly asked one of them if he 'wanted' to work on the weekend to get the subpoenas out,” recalls Smith.
            And the junior's response: “Honestly, no, I don't – I've got plans.” Smith immediately started thinking of alternatives available to him.
            “The first thing that popped in my head was of a friend in Mysore, who was trying to work his way through his university, and who was always asking me for a job. I called him up, e-mailed him the details, and he happily did the work for a dollar an hour, as he requested, which is more than the going rate for Mysore students,” points out Smith.
            A few months later, the Manhattan office of Smith's firm was having a problem. The immigration department, which handles visa applications for producers, entertainers, artists, and others, who need to come to the US on business, was finding itself extremely short-staffed. Too many chefs bringing in and managing clients, in relation to the number of cooks needed to process the work. It then occurred to Smith that rather than move to bigger and expensive office space in the city, and hire more staff there, he could promote his secretarial people and even more immigration paralegals in Mysore. With an extra office in Mysore, he could handle thousands of visas a year, instead of hundreds.
            “I figured Mysore would be ideal, because as a university town, it has plenty of talented candidates, while at the same time a much lower cost, and higher quality of living, in contrast to India's big cities. My friends confirmed that if decent jobs were in Mysore, most graduates would prefer to stay in their home town, and live with their families,” he explains.

            So he went online to find a few things to send to his law colleagues about Mysore. He discovered that his idea was hardly original. “Astute business analysts from India and all over the world already have concluded that Mysore is an ideal location for business – the next Bangalore, but hopefully without the congestion, and the lack of planning that led to it. The traffic in Bangalore is so bad that it can take two hours or more just to go across town. Many people in Bangalore find it faster to drive all the way to Mysore, than to get to their jobs in Bangalore. Anyway, my unoriginal idea about setting up offices in Mysore kept growing, until we eventually launched SDD Global there.”
            Russell Smith is the founder of the New York media and intellectual property law firm, SmithDehn LLP, which in turn founded SDD Global. “The days are gone when large, traditional law firms in the West can continue their ways and survive. Even corporate clients with large pockets are fed up, firing their old law firms in droves, because what they see is a lack of responsiveness, inefficiency, or lack of concentration on keeping costs in line. SDD Global Solutions is providing an alternative,” he says emphatically.

            Now, SDD Global Solutions is offering a wide range of services. Essentially the Indian attorneys in the Mysore office are doing the same work as if they were licensed attorneys in the New York office of the US law firm. Except that they do not actually provide legal advice, and obviously they do not appear in US courts. The work here is high-end, knowledge-based work. It is legal research and analysis, drafting of legal documents, and the like. In other words, 99 per cent of what lawyers do in the United States.

            “In addition, immigration visa specialists figure out lawful ways for our business clients to get the skilled personnel they need in the US from abroad,” points out Smith, who is the chairman of SDD Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd. “Another thing we are very good at is helping motion picture and television studios figure out how to make film and TV productions lawfully, and how to get the necessary insurance. We do this for 20th Century Fox, HBO, Sony Pictures, Channel 4 Television, and many other media clients.”

            The firm, to its credit, has done legal work for some of the most successful Hollywood films. “Nearly all the legal work for 'Borat,' the most financially successful comedy film of all times, was done from Mysore. Similarly the award-winning film, 'Death of a President,' featuring the fictional assassination of US President George Bush, could not have been released, without the rapid, expert, and low-cost legal assistance that SDD Global provided,” says Smith. SDD Global Solutions is helping get insurance for Al Pacino's next film, and doing the legal groundwork for a new reality TV series about rookie cops.  “There is business coming in to SDD Global where we will be doing work on a major new motion picture from Universal Pictures,” remarks Smith. “Another large Hollywood studio has asked us to handle thousands of US immigration visas for its actors and directors.” Other SDD Global clients include Calvin Klein, Travelers Insurance, and major US publishers Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons.

            Most recently, the attorneys at SDD Global have been doing legal research to help defend a highly-acclaimed HBO television series, now facing a court case in Los Angeles. The company's employees also help prepare legal road maps to help film and television producers avoid trouble and obtain needed insurance. With the influx of clients, SDD Global last month moved to its own 330-employee building in Mysore and is looking to hire over 200 recruits within the next 12 months.

            The firm employs both Indians as well as expatriates. “We always have between one and three American lawyers in Mysore, and that will increase, as we are now looking to hire three more,” says Smith. “But all of the rest of our employees, which is the vast majority, are Indians. The work culture is definitely Western oriented to suit our clients, and it is professional, but at the same time much more relaxed than the US law firms I have experienced. We have enough people so that there is no need for ridiculous hours, such as pulling all-nighters, which are very common for young lawyers in New York. My guess is we might be the only legal services company with a meditation room, and a “movie of the week,” which we all gather to watch and discuss on Friday afternoons.”

            The experience so far in Mysore has been tremendous. “Our dream of helping to change the legal landscape in the West is becoming a reality,” explains the American legal eagle. “We have attracted major investors, excellent employees and managers, and most importantly, clients. We already have several Fortune 100 clients, and soon we are moving into the Fortune 10.” Asked about his being referred to as 'Maharaja of Media,' Smith quips: “I'm going to work with it. Hopefully someday I can get a promotion, to Prime Minister of Global Legal Services.” A bachelor, Smith has made Mysore his home. His interest starts with Yoga. “I don't want to sound too pious, but I love yoga and meditation, and Mysore is as good a place as any for that. I also like quality time with friends, and thanks to Mysore being a major centre for yoga, I've got a steady stream of friends coming in every year from Brazil, France, Italy, New York, Los Angeles.”
            Smith used to visit Mysore once a year, but now he visits the US once a year. “Even after all this time, I still find Mysore interesting and exotic, and people in Mysore seem to feel the same way about me. In India, I feel like I have a front-row seat before the world in transition, where the so-called “third world” is becoming the “first world.” Actually, the biggest thrill is not sitting in the front row, but getting out onto the playing field. SDD Global has allowed all of us to do that. As for family, I am a bachelor, but I do miss my parents, and my dogs.”
            Once in a while he goes night clubbing. “Believe it or not, Mysore's Club Hookah is one of the best dance clubs I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty of them all over the world, especially when I was young,” he adds. His take home experience? “Strangely, I guess I have to face the fact that Mysore is becoming my home. So that is my “take home” experience.”

'Outsourcing is good for American Business'

Russell Smith's take on legal and other outsourcing assignments to India. Excerpts:

What is the potential for legal outsourcing to India?
It is vast. Western companies and individuals now spend $250 billion a year on legal fees. This number is way too high, sometimes even crippling. We figure the vast majority of the work can be done in India, for half the cost, so we are looking at a legal outsourcing industry worth up to $100 billion or more. The financial “experts” usually come up with lower figures, but those figures are based on asking US lawyers from big law firms how much of their work can be outsourced. Those lawyers say 10 per cent but they are not telling the truth.

What is your take on the controversy in the US on outsourcing to India?
It's all demagoguery. Rightly or wrongly, the business of America is business, and outsourcing is good for business. In the United States, there is no major political party that is not beholden to business interests, so even if some lawyers put up a fight, they will not win. In fact, every bar association ruling on the issue so far has upheld the ethics of legal outsourcing. Also, hardly anyone in America, except for lawyers, is opposed to drastically cutting legal fees. As legal work becomes more affordable, the demand for it will increase, so I am not sure there will be any loss of legal jobs in the US at all, although surely the fees will have come down to earth.

What is the scope for growth in Mysore?
We already are the “go to” firm in India for the media and book publishing worlds, so next we are expanding into doing legal work for IT companies. In the meantime, companies from all kinds of fields, even one of the top three auto companies , are approaching us, so the expansion process is not entirely under our control. But one thing is clear. We are going to keep ramping up our capabilities, with hopefully 200 employees within the next year, and several thousand in the next few years. Honestly, I see no reason why we should not be as big as Infosys, with 50,000 employees or more. What Infosys and TCS are to IT, we are in relation to the world of Western legal services.

What do your clients think of this?
They love it. They see their legal fees cut in half, and the quality and speed of the work product is better than they get from their usual stodgy big US law firms.

SOM: How did you come up with the idea?
Russell: I have been coming to Mysore for a few years now to learn Ashtanga yoga from Pattabhi Jois and his family, and I love the city.  After I went back to the US, I had to prepare a lot of subpoenas in hurry, and I could not find anyone available at my law firm.  Out of sheer desperation I called a local student in Mysore whom I had met during my stay here and asked him if he could do the work, if I provided him all the information.  He agreed, and when I asked him what his charges were, he hesitantly said 1 dollar an hour.  I couldn’t believe it, 1 dollar an hour!!  Back in the US, we would have paid many times that, if we could find someone to do the work.  So I decided to off-shore this kind of activity to a more doable and cost-effective location.

SOM: Why Mysore?
Russell: Quite a few reasons actually, first cost, then the city itself.  It is a good city to work in.  And finally the talent pool.

SOM: So have you been able to get good people ?
Russell:  Yes, from both Mysore and its surrounding areas. We have nearly 40 employees from Mysore, Coorg and even Bangalore.  Now people are streaming in from Delhi and Mumbai.

SOM: Does off-shoring raise the issue of Cost Vs. Quality?
With us, the quality of work is just as good as it is in the United States or even better. If we tell our client in the US that we'll do some job for 1/5th the cost but the quality of work cannot be guaranteed, they'll just end the meeting on the spot.  No one wants to cut costs at the expense of quality, when it comes to legal work.
Most of our people here are very well qualified and efficient, and we have very good training programs. In fact, we are almost like a US law school. Once you are with us, you will end up learning the US laws very well.

SOM: So are you looking to mainly hire laywers?
Sanjay:  Not really, of course for most of the core team, which is into research and other areas of expertise, we hire lawyers, but others not necessarily. We have lots of work for non-lawyers here too.
Russell:  In all the time I spent in Mysore and in India I realized that every parent wanted their child to become either a doctor or a computer engineer. Everything else seemed to be viewed as a non-viable profession.  With SDD Global Solutions, we want to prove that it’s not true. We want to show how being a lawyer can be a very viable profession.
In fact our pay scale is higher than some famous IT companies. The market for LPO is only going to grow.  Right now the market is worth more than $100 billion, and only a minuscule part of this business is being off-shored now.

SOM: What are you expansion plans?
We are planning to have another floor, that hopefully can increase our strength to more than 500 people. We are also looking for land, but every two months the prices are increasing, so it’s hard to buy.  Mysore it seems might have a glut of office spaces as buildings are built but are empty, so hopefully prices will go down.  We also plan to hire close to 5000 people in the next five years or so.

SOM: Who are your clients ?
Lot of media companies, like 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, etc., and also major retailers like Calvin Klein and several large book publishers.  We are taking care of legal problems with last year’s hit, Borat.  We are right now working on a movie starring Al Pacino.  We do a lot of legal research for movie studios, by which I mean we and our U.S. law firm parent basically tell them if the movie they plan to make is going to run into serious trouble or not. We tell them which part of the movie might be a problem in which part of the world or which state.  We let them know what kind of cases they might have to fight, and how much we can defend them, and if the case can be won.
This is very important as the studios decide to give the green signal for production based on this research and analysis, coupled with advice from the U.S. lawyers that manage our operation.
This kind of work costs somewhere between $30-90 an hour in India whereas in the US, the studios would have to pay close to $200-700 an hour.
We also work with cable networks and TV channels such as HBO and Channel 4 Television.

SOM: Coming to the fun part, we heard you have a movie night every Friday, but is it always a movie that has to do with law ?
Oh, no that's not true, we have other movies too, but they usually tend to have some issue that involves law.  Today we are watching the Ali G series.  It has not much to do with law, but then we are working on his cases, so there is a connection.

SOM: Finally what 3 movies do you think will inspire a student to purse a career in law?

U.S. Law Firm To Offshore Services From Mysore

MYSORE, April 28, 2006:  The city's growing credentials as an emerging centre for knowledge-based services and the next major hub for Business Process Outsourcing activity will be further vindicated when New York-based Smith Dornan Dehn launches its legal service offshoring business from Mysore.

Smith Dornan and Dehn is an international media, entertainment and intellectual property law firm headquartered in New York with clients such as 20th Century Fox, Sony Entertainment, HBO and Clinton Foundation. Its Indian subsidiary, SDD Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd., will be inaugurated on Sunday.

Russell Smith, Chairman of SDD Global Solutions, told The Hindu here that Mysore was the first venture of the New York-based firm in India, and that it was chosen precisely for the advantages of easy availability of talent pool, salubrious climate, a superior quality of life that is absent in cities such as Bangalore and the fact that there were many Mysoreans who would prefer to return to their native city given its unsurpassed charm. A major portion of talent in Bangalore originated from Mysore and a sizeable number of people were prepared to return here if provided a chance, he said.

Mr. Smith said offshoring legal services from India was a growing market and cited a BPO intelligence report from ValueNotes, which estimated that revenue from legal services offshoring from India was expected to cross one billion $ by 2015 from the current levels of 61 million $.

SDD Global Solutions will initially take up legal research, provide litigation support and immigration processing, and hire law graduates as also others.

Mysore Lawyers Execute Legal Work for Hollywood Films

Laiqh A. Khan
Mysore

            About 20 attorneys operating out of a three-storeyed building in Kuvempunagar in Mysore have been quietly providing high-end legal services to a host of leading Hollywood movie studios and high-profile television channels for the last six months.
            The 20 attorneys are part of a 35-member team of qualified professionals at SDD Global Solutions here.
            Few know that attorneys based in Mysore provided nearly all the legal defence for “Borat”, a comedy film that grossed more than $250 million at the box office. Similarly, the much-publicised film “Death of a President”, a fictional depiction of the assassination of George Bush, could not have been released without the legal assistance of SDD Global Solutions. The legal process outsourcing company has its hands full, completing the legal formalities for Al Pacino's new film.
            “I am not authorised to talk about it,” Sanjay Bhatia, who heads the company's operations in Mysore, told The Hindu.
            Though Mysore is the headquarters of SDD Global Solutions, the company is managed by a Manhattan-based firm SDD (Smith Dornan Dehn), an international media and intellectual property firm, which has most of its clients in New York, Los Angeles and London.

It’s India for legal services

ABDUL LATHEEF NAHA

Outsourcing and off-shoring are concepts not new to India. After the hugely popular business process outsourcing (BPO), the country is currently witnessing a boom in legal process outsourcing (LPO) with legal firms from around the world turning to India to outsource their legal services. According to LPO watchers, the industry is here to stay.

Great potential

But for fighting court cases in cities such as London and New York for law firms there, Indian lawyers are doing everything else for their Western clients. From litigation support and contract review to patent writing and paralegal services, the growth potential of LPO remains tremendous. Latest figures show that this industry will generate more than 80,000 jobs in the next eight years.
According to Russell Smith of SDD Global Solutions, the off-shoring arm of a leading U.S. law firm, the figure is based on an assumption that only 10 per cent of law firm work can be outsourced. With increasing global confidence in Indian legal services, that percentage can be much larger, says Mr. Smith.

According to Nassscom, estimates of current addressable market potential for legal services that can be outsourced from the U.S. alone are pegged at $3 billion to $4 billion. It is estimated that only 3 to 4 per cent of the potential market has been tapped so far.
By 2010, India is poised to achieve significant growth by doubling its share to 6 to 7 per cent in the $250-billion global market of LPO. According to the BPO Council of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM), over 200 top U.S. companies alone are looking for offshore locations towards achieving savings of up to 70 per cent.

Thousands of Indian patent agents and intellectual property professionals will be working for U.S. and European clients in the next few years.
LPO is the industry in which in-house legal departments or organisations outsource legal work from areas where it is costly to perform, such as the U.S. or Europe, to areas where it can be performed at a significantly decreased cost, primarily India.

High-end industry

As the outsourced firm is based in another country, the practice is sometimes called legal off-shoring. LPO is a high-end industry witnessing rapid growth since 2005. Major countries providing legal services market include the U.S., the U.K., France, Australia, South Korea, Japan and China.
LPO provides services such as legal research; document drafting such as standard contracts, agreements, letters to the clients, and patent applications; legal billing activities such as preparation of invoices, collation of time sheets; intellectual property research; immigration visas; health insurance claim; and administrative and secretarial activities such as following up with clients.
Cost saving is the biggest attraction for the western firms that outsource their legal work. India’s legal services are widely considered affordable, efficient, and above all, skilled. For a legal job outsourced in India, the U.S. firm pays hardly one-fourth or one-fifth of what it has to pay in the U.S. for the same work.
In other words, lawyers in India charge a pittance in comparison to their U.S. counterparts. In the U.S., legal services are billed at a whopping $150 to $200 an hour. In India, the same job costs about $20 to $30 an hour. The salary of lawyers in India is less than 15 per cent of their U.S. counterparts.
Another big attraction of LPO is the geographical position of the U.S. vis-À-vis India. U.S. legal firms get a turnaround time of 24 hours by outsourcing their work to India. LPO users can gain more operational efficiencies by focusing on core business activities while having access to a breadth of skills, technology and service offerings at a reduced cost.
However, LPO is a business that gets affected by the relative movements of currency. The recent appreciation of the rupee has had its negative effect on LPO as well. LPO opportunities are so tremendous that a large number of our law graduates can find jobs.

Several reasons

For a young legal professional, a career with an LPO is attractive for several reasons: It is a sunrise industry which should see a boom in the next eight years; a learning opportunity for those considering legal and paralegal careers in the West; there is a tremendous variety of work at all levels of expertise; attractive remuneration and future management prospects; an opportunity to work in a corporate structure that straddles borders; high-end opportunities for graduates of top law schools.
There are currently over a million lawyers in India and the country’s law schools churn out nearly 80,000 law graduates every year. Hardly 5 per cent of them join the law firms and legal departments, or apprentice under reputed senior lawyers at various courts and tribunals. LPO has become a big attraction for many of our law graduates.

Essential skills

As nearly 80 per cent of the current LPO work emanates from the U.S., proficiency in American English, drafting and research methodology are essential skills for those seeking LPO jobs. Computer proficiency is also essential.
There is a good amount of work that can be done by non-lawyers as well. For instance, there is an increasing demand for engineers in the intellectual property work space. The work involves analysing scientific and technological inventions for the purposes of crafting legal protection. This work needs to be done by those with technological skills and hence the opportunities for engineers.
Leading LPO players in the country include WNS, Evalueserve, OfficeTiger, Pangea3 and SDD Global. Infosys and Wipro are closely watching the growth of the LPO industry. HCL has already built capability for LPO.
According to Mr. Smith, it makes sense for the BPOs to enter this segment because the profit margins are higher. LPO is part of high-end knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) that many BPOs are already into, he says.
It will be a milestone in LPO when the world LPO summit takes place on January 17 in New York.

Good Scope for Legal Process Outsourcing

Sunanda Jayaseelan

See original article here

New York Firm Takes on India..."Very Nice!"
by Heather Greenwood Davis

If the American lawyers handling the litigation for the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan were actually in the movie, people would still be looking for a punch line.

But Canadian law firms–who have been following the legal outsourcing trend of hiring and training legal professionals in India to work for American clients at a fraction of the cost of doing it on-shore–know this is no joke.

SDD Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd., the affiliate arm of New York law firm Smith Dornan Dehn, is currently handling the multi-million dollars worth of Borat-related litigation from their offices in Mysore, India.

Russell Smith, president and chairman of SDD Global, believes it's only the tip of a very lucrative iceberg.

“I would say 90 per cent of the work [being done in North American law firms] can be off shored to India,” says Smith. “If it's not walking into court, holding the client's hand or having a meeting–which by the way most clients don't need anyway–it can be done here.”

Smith's company isn't the only Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) player in Mysore.

Competitors range from Indian law firms who have abandoned local practice and declared themselves open for low-end outside legal work to Indian lawyers who have allied themselves with American lawyers for training and marketing purposes while they do the routine document work at large Indian firms.

Indian law prohibits foreign firms from practising in India, but SDD Global has managed to stay above the laws by operating as an affiliate.

In its July 2007 report, “Offshoring Legal Services to India,” ValueNotes, a leading business research company, has praised SDD Global Solutions as one of two “emerging players with a strong onshore presence and expertise in the LPO space."   In its report, ValueNotes also included SDD Global among eight vendors in the LPO (legal process outsourcing) industry who "are aggressively ramping up their headcount.”   The ValueNotes report also featured two lengthy quotes from SDD Global management, as well as two pages of information about our company.

Legally yours

SDD Global Solutions, operating from Mysore is said to be the only high-end legal service KPO in India run by a U. S. Law Firm.

Outsourcing and offshoring are not concepts new to India. Amidst much hullaballo over IT and banking outsourcing, legal services offshoring units are making the country their base.

Be it because of the expenses involved in setting up plush offices down town or the huge salaries that legal service providers demand in the West, offshoring is emerging as a viable option.

Mysore, which sports the reputation of a “potential city,” headquarters one such unit, SDD Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

SDD, formed, majority-owned and managed by SmithDehn LLP a Manhattan-based international media and intellectual property firm is the only high-end legal service KPO (knowledge process offshoring) company in India run by a U.S. law firm.

Mr. Russell Smith, Chairman and President of SDD, is a Columbia Law School graduate with 21 years of litigation and other legal experience. He feels that Mysore is a city with great capacity. With the cost of setting up an office in Mysore 43 times less than that in Manhattan, clients are relieved from having to pay huge fees which are marked up to cover the rent more than the actual service provided. A process of reverse migration is also set up, in that well-educated professionals who have left the city for want of better job prospects will return if more companies set up base here and offer competitive salaries.

JANUARY 29, 2007
EXECUTIVE LIFE

Pilgrimage To the Heart Of Yoga
Devotees from around the world head for Mysore, India, home of the vigorous form called Ashtanga

At 5 p.m. on a breezy Saturday, the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in the southern Indian city of Mysore is buzzing. Students from around the globe are thronging the steps of the three-story, light-gray concrete building. Clad in light-colored cotton pants and T-shirts, their backs ramrod straight, their eyes and skin aglow, they are queuing up to greet Sharath Rangaswamy, 35, a master of Ashtanga yoga, and his grandfather, Guruji K. Pattabhi Jois, the institute's founder. Some are there to inquire about their classes, which start at 5 a.m. the next day, and some are still hoping to enroll.

While there are numerous yoga centers in Mysore, a two-hour trip by car or train from Bangalore, Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute is the most well-known and the one that attracts the greatest number of visitors from overseas. Ashtanga, which means "eight limbs" in Sanskrit, is an extremely active form of yoga. It combines "vinyasa," or flowing breath, with "asanas," or poses. The rigorous mix heats the body in an intense workout that some say is equal to a grueling session at the gym.

Russell Smith, a New York entertainment lawyer, says part of the attraction of Ashtanga yoga is the physical rigor. When he first took classes in New York, "I couldn't do any of the poses, and I felt awful," he recalls. "Even so, I was on a cloud. The class really opened me up—the combination of movement and breathing was amazing. I'm hooked." Since 2004, Smith has spent at least three months a year studying in Mysore.

'India is the Best in Legal Offshoring'

September 04, 2007

After the high-profile business process outsourcing units, it is the turn of legal firms from the United States to look at India to outsource legal services.
SDD Global Solutions Pvt Ltd is a legal services KPO (knowledge process offshoring) company, incorporated and headquartered in Mysore.

Russell Smith, president, chairman and founder of SDD Global Solutions, is a Columbia Law School graduate with over 21 years of legal experience. He has represented some of the most high-profile companies in the world -- HBO, Sony Pictures Television, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, Miramax Films, Penguin Books, et cetera.
One of the recent achievements of SDD Global Solutions is that it has been hired by Sony Pictures to help with the legal work on their next film and by 20th Century Fox and the makers of the Borat, movie. SDD Global Solutions has also clients such as Universal Pictures, HBO, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, and the Clinton Foundation.
In this interview with Contributing Editor Shobha Warrier, Smith discusses the future of LPO, legal process outsourcing.

What prompted your firm to outsource legal work?

We decided to set up a legal offshoring company because we know that the Western legal services industry is sick, and we want to be a part of the cure!
A recent survey of legal department heads at leading US companies revealed that only 30 per cent of those companies would recommend their outside law firm to others, and 53 per cent of them recently fired their outside law firm.

'India Beckons'

A recent article in Businessweek reports that there are as many as 1,000 foreigners holding senior positions in India. This number was less than 150 in 2005 and is expected to double by 2009. India Beckons!

Reliance Life Sciences has 15 expatriates, of which several hold senior positions. 7 of the 8 top officials at Cisco Systems' Globalization Center in India are expatriates. Consulting giant Accenture has nearly 100 expatriates in India. India's newly acquired magnetism on the global stage is pulling in foreigners. What's more, the article goes on to quote international search firm Egon Zehnder's research, which shows that 50% of senior management searches are now targeted at non-Indians in the quest to get 'the best person for the job', especially in niche areas like infrastructure, aviation, retail, and life sciences where talent is short. Contracts are typically for three to five years. Some of these salaries are two to three times higher than their Indian counterparts, but the domain expertise they bring justifies the disparities.

So what unique career opportunities are available for expatriates in India? Why are foreigners more willing to move to India now than earlier?

Rachna Patel, country resource manager, global services delivery, LogicaCMG, India believes that the focus of the west towards India and other relatively low cost markets is the primary factor responsible for this change. “It is only natural that multinational companies would like to leverage western experience in the AsiaPac region. Large companies are finding this region a virtually untapped market with great potential and are falling over themselves to get a footprint here,” she opines. Patel feels that like any new offshoring/outsourcing enterprise, this one too has a steep initial learning curve when it comes to process, policy and methodology and will become easier when people who have experience in these areas are part of the new enterprise and can lead by example. “Given that, more and more companies are looking to this region to grow, more job opportunities exist making it attractive for foreigners to leverage their experience profitably in India. It's all about getting more exposure or being a global citizen – if it's lucrative enough!” she asserts.

EFY News Network
[Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2:11:02 PM]

The funding will be used primarily to hire additional Western-licenced attorneys to augment both the company’s extensive employee training programme in India.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007: SDD Global Solutions Private Limited, a legal services outsourcing company in India managed by a US law firm, has entered into a funding arrangement with SFP Priority Co., Ltd, a member of the SFP group, an Asia-based investor. This arrangement provides for a first round of $2 million, to be followed by subsequent rounds on an as-needed basis. The funding will be used primarily to hire additional Western-licenced attorneys to augment both the company’s extensive employee training programme in India and its range of services offered, expand its global marketing efforts and step up its ongoing recruitment drive for the best and brightest law graduates in India. SFP Priority will have two representatives join SDD Global Solutions' board of directors.

"We are very pleased with this tremendous vote of confidence in both our company and Indian legal services outsourcing generally. This will help us to more rapidly expand our business and to play an even larger role in the paradigm shift in the way legal services are delivered in the West," said Russell Smith, chairman, SDD Global Solutions.

Mysore, Sept. 26- SDD Global Solutions Private Limited, the only legal services outsourcing company in India managed by a US law firm has announced that it has entered into a comprehensive funding arrangement with SFP Priority Co., Ltd., a member of the SFP group, a leading Asia-based investor. The arrangement underscores the significant demand for, and growth potential of, SDD Global Solutions’ high-end legal services offshoring business.

This multi-faceted arrangement provides for a first round of USD 2 million, to be followed by subsequent rounds on an as-needed basis.

“We are very pleased with this tremendous vote of confidence in both our Company and Indian legal services outsourcing generally,” said Russell Smith, Chairman of SDD Global Solutions. “This will help us to more rapidly expand our business and to play an even larger role in the paradigm shift in the way legal services are delivered in the West,” said Smith.

This arrangement is a key component of Mysore-based SDD Global Solutions’ strategic plan to expand and consolidate its position as one of the industry’s leading players. The funding will be used primarily to (a) hire additional Western-licensed attorneys to augment both the Company’s extensive employee training program in India and its range of services offered; (b) expand its global marketing efforts, and (c) step up its ongoing recruitment drive for the best and brightest law graduates in India.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, Smith said “the SFP has the financial resources to take our company all the way. We now have all the backing we need.”