What's in a Name?
While initially the focus of the LPO industry was on the labor arbitrage benefits available from outsourcing certain routine legal tasks to lower-cost locations, such as India and the Philippines, the industry has matured dramatically and transformed itself over the last few years.
Today, LPO is best characterized as a global operating model, combining a best-practices framework with process efficiency, quality control, consultative expertise and enabling technology at its core. The leading LPO providers today support multiple practice areas from onshore, offshore and onsite delivery platforms and are no longer constrained by the shackles of a particular geography or restricted to e-discovery. There has even been discussion in the marketplace as to whether the acronym LPO is still appropriate, given the expanding array of services on offer. In an attempt to differentiate from LPO and, by association, from the world of e-discovery, some utilize terminology such as “managed legal services”, or “alternative legal services provider”. Well, if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then as the saying goes.... it probably roasts up well with an orange glaze. In my opinion, LPO providers, managed legal services providers and alternative legal services providers are one and the same—essentially new legal market entrants providing innovative, efficient, technology-enabled legal services.2