Views on Outsourcing

Because I mentioned it in an earlier post, I wanted to include a link to the recent ABA ethics committee opinion that affirms that lawyers may ethically outsource legal work to lawyers and nonlawyers in the United States and abroad, so long as they remain ultimately responsible for rendering competent services within the bounds of professional conduct, at: http://www.abanet.org/cpr/08-451.pdf.

According to our last survey, the readers of this blog are not as open to outsourcing as is the ABA.

Cutting the Cost of Discovery with Off-Site Document Review

Our readers are not comfortable with the idea of off-site discovery, even though it is sanctioned by the ABA. An overwhelming majority of voters discourage the use of off-site reviewers -- 91%! This group voted against outsourcing for various reasons: most, 50% voted to "discourage it" because they did not trust the accuracy of off-shore reviewers; the other 41% voted to "discourage it" because they have confidentiality, document security concerns.

The remaining 9% of those surveyed said "encourage it" because it is a great way to save money on costly discovery.

I was surprised by the high number of people that voted against this (inevitable?) phenomenon. I am one of the believers that the practice of law is changing; we will have to wait and see if off-shore, off-site and other cost-efficient ways to alleviate discovery burdens (and beyond) become more prevalent in the days to come.

What's Your Plan B?

This article was published a while ago, but it is worth a read. If you haven't read it yet or have, but haven't given it much thought. Take a look at it again, it is still just the beginning of the year. Do you feel secure enough that you will make it to end of 2009 without a Plan B?



http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/01/welcome-to-the-future-time-for-plan-b-in-2009.html

In Search of Pride in our Profession

I would like to share a quote by Edmund Burke (political philosopher) that I recently read: "No other profession is more closely connected with actual life than the law. It concerns the highest of all temporal interests of man--property, reputation, the peace of families, the arbitrations and peace of nations, liberty, life even, and the very foundations of society."

When I fear I am turning into a monster of my profession, I am relieved to find inspiring words, like those from Mr. Burke, to remind me of why I worked hard to become a lawyer in the first place.