Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) – Top Ten Service Providers
May 15, 2010
6. Who are Our Top 10 LPO Providers?
For this research report, we have reviewed past surveys, industry award winners and rankings, articles and the websites of LPO service providers themselves in order to determine who the top 10 providers of LPO services are. According to our analysis, the following firms are currently our top 10 LPO providers:
- Bodhi Global Services (P), Ltd.
- Clutch Group
- Cobra Legal Solutions, LLC
- CPA Global Ltd.
- Integreon Managed Solutions, Inc.
- LawScribe, Inc.
- Mindcrest
- Pangea3
- Quislex
- UnitedLex
These top 10 LPO providers generally share the following characteristics that are essential for successful LPO firms:
- USA Headquarters and Corporate Presence. All of our top 10 LPO providers except for Bodhi Global Services have their corporate headquarters in the USA (or Jersey in the case of CPA Global) but even Bodhi has a physical presence in the USA in the form of an office in New York City.
- India Delivery Centers. All of our top 10 LPO providers have some type of back office delivery setup in India but only Integreon has a true global delivery foot print with additional sites in the Philippines, South Africa, the UK and the USA.
- Familiar Processes or Certifications. All of our top 10 LPO providers have sought to implement globally recognized processes or certifications with six sigma, ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 being the most common processes implemented or certifications achieved. These processes and certifications are also clearly noted on the websites of these firms.
- Law Firm and Corporate Clients. All of our top 10 LPO providers have clients that include a mix of both top ranked law firms and the legal departments of Fortune 500 firms.
- Service Line Diversity. All of our top 10 LPO providers (except for CPA Global which specializes in IP related work) are full spectrum LPO service providers offering multiple LPO related services.
- LPO is the Core Business. All of our top 10 LPO providers except for Integreon are true LPO firms as they only offer LPO services. However, it should be noted that LPO has long been a core focus of KPO firm Integreon and they have also grown their LPO service line by acquiring other LPO firms.
- Non-Indians in Senior Leadership Roles. All of our top 10 LPO providers except for Bodhi indicate that they have at least one non-Indian in a senior executive level role. However, even Bodhi has hired experienced lawyers in the US who supervise legal projects, oversee work flow and interface directly with clients.
- In other words and if you represent a law firm or a corporate legal department who is seeking a provider of LPO services, finding one that shares many of the above characteristics will be the key to having a successful partnership.
6.1. Bodhi Global Services (P), Ltd.
Headquarters
IT Tower, Road 12A Kalyani Nagar
Pune, India 411006
Phone: 91.20.41064800
Other Locations: New York City and Mumbai.
Website: http://www.bodhiglobal.com
Founded: N/A
Revenues: Privately held subsidiary.
Key Personnel: Arihant Patni, Chief Executive Officer; Svati Shashank, Vice President Client Relations; Suchorita Mookerjee, Director of Operations; Percis Anklesaria, Head Quality and Training; and Naseem Qadeer, Head Litigation Support.
Capabilities/Capacities: Litigation support, real estate, contract review, corporate due diligence, legal research and IP services.
Processes or Certifications Achieved: ISO 27001 certification and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) from Canada.
Clients: MNCs and international law firms.
The Bottom Line:The founders of Bodhi include Ajay Bahl, Zia Mody and Bahram Vakil of AZB & Partners, one of India’s leading law firms with offices in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore and about 300 lawyers, and the Patni family who are the founders of Patni Computer Systems and PCS Technology. Today, Patni companies have a total revenue of close to one billion US dollars and employ more than 15,000 people who service Fortune 1,000 clients from offices around the world.
Hence, these founders bring a high level of oversight to Bodhi Global. In addition, the firm has hired experienced lawyers in the US to supervise legal projects, oversee work flow and interface directly with clients.
Bodhi’s strengths include assisting with the review of documents associated with cross-border mergers or acquisitions; contract management which includes the drafting and red-lining of standardized documents, analysis and abstraction of contracts and contract database management; lease abstraction which involves the summarizing long and complicated leases in basic templates; and legal research.
Further Reading
“Bodhi CEO Arihant Patni interviewed by Metropolitan Corporate Counsel on how to cut legal costs.” Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. December, 2009.
6.2. Clutch Group
Headquarters:
910 17th Street, NW
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20006
USA
Phone: (202) 828-3380
Other Locations: Bangalore, Cleveland, Chicago and New York City. The Clutch Group also services Europe via a strategic partner based in Brussels, Belgium.
Website: http://www.clutchgroup.com
Founded: 2006
Revenues: Not available
Key Personnel: Abhi Shah, CEO & Managing Director; Dinesh Sawant, Chief Operating Officer; Dinesh Sawant, Chief Operating Officer; Maria Maccarone, SVP, Operations; Pascal Lieblich, VP, Global Legal Services; and Pam Crystal, VP, Business Development.
Capabilities/Capacities: Legal staffing, document review, contract management, compliance and legal research.
Processes or Certifications Achieved: ISO 9001:2008 Certification Achieved for Quality Management System, ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification and Compliance with European Union (EU) Safe Harbor Guidelines.
Clients: Fortune 500 companies and top international law firms, including over 40 of the 100 largest law firms in the USA.
The Bottom Line:
Born out of a Harvard Law School project to create an entrepreneurial venture that could help the legal industry take advantage of globalization, the Clutch Group has more than 350 attorneys and paralegals spread across both the USA and India. However, easier legal work is still performed by about 100 employees in Bangalore while more difficult cases are handled by the company’s U.S. lawyers.
With the recent concession to begin the process of opening up the Indian legal market via the Limited Liability Partnership Act, the Clutch Group is focusing more effort to help facilitate collaboration between Indian and foreign law firms. Hence and while they will continue to focus on LPO, the firm will also increasingly focus its efforts on providing high-end consulting services to law firms looking to enter the Indian legal market.
Further Reading:
“Coming through in the clutch.” Indus Business Journal. May 2009.
6.3. Cobra Legal Solutions, LLC
Headquarters:
1501 Broadway
12th Floor
New York, NY 10036
USA
Phone: 1.212.668.0200
Cobra Legal Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Ascendas International IT Park
Phase 1, 10th Floor
Taramani Road (IT Highway)
Taramani, Chennai
Tamil Nadu, India 600113
Phone: 91.44.4296.3800
Other Locations: Atlanta and Washington DC.
Website: http://www.cobralegalsolutions.com
Founded: 2007
Revenues: US$950,000 (Dunn & Bradstreet estimate)
Key Personnel: Candice Hunter Corby, CEO; Jeff Isenberg, Jeff Isenberg, Managing Director; Kevin M. Clark, Managing Director – Litigation; Sakthivel Venkatraman, Managing Director, Operations; Nithya Chandar, Manager, Human Resources; Mahesh Krishnan, Senior Process Manager; Sayee Ramaswami, Manager, Accounts and Administration; and Thandapani Ramachandran, Manager, IT Infrastructure.
Capabilities/Capacities: Document review and management solutions, litigation technology consulting services, legal research and contract management.
Processes or Certifications Achieved: ISO 27001
Clients: International and domestic corporations and law firms.
The Bottom Line:
Founded by John Douglas (a partner in the banking and securities area at Davis Polk) after a series of charity related trips to India with his wife, Cobra has about 55 India-based attorneys (plus a staff of technical experts) who are trained to primarily analyze, code and abstract materials for legal document reviews and to provide other legal support services. This team is supervised by a US litigation attorney who is permanently based in Chennai.
In addition, Cobra currently has partnerships with Planet Data (a global leader in Discovery Management Services for law firms, corporations and government agencies), CaseCentral (the provider of secure, on-demand eDiscovery software for corporations and law firms) and Rainmaker (a provider of training and recruitment services to the legal industry). In addition, Cobra has recently appointed Candice Hunter Corby, the former Chief Operating Officer in Baker & McKenzie LLP’s Dallas, Texas office and Chief Financial Officer of Godwin Gruber LLP (now Godwin Ronquillo, PC), as their CEO.
Cobra’s core competencies include document review for litigation, antitrust, arbitration and related legal areas. In addition, Cobra handles legal research projects and they are considering entering other areas like contract management while on the US side, they provide client advisement or consult¬ing services in e-discovery practices, vendor selection and other related areas.
Further Reading:
“Legal Process Outsourcing: A Conversation between William Scarbrough and Candice Hunter Corby.” Practice Innovations. March 2010.
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Great… Thanks for sharing us your review… I like the way you show us your point, very interesting!
Interesting report, I enjoyed reading the “Ethical Implications of LPO”. I am planning to start my own LPO soon, and this report helped me a lot.