Home / Articles posted by Edward Brooks
It’s a story from Australia but every single law school in the world should be reading this. Full credit, with distinction, for Stephanie Quine and Lawyers Weekly for this the article below. Read it, but the crux of it is – law schools are even slower than law firms to catch up on the […]
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http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/news/2280269/blps-lawyers-on-demand-hires-ft-gc-for-practice-development-role?wt.mc_ev=click&WT.tsrc=Email&utm_term=&utm_content=BLP%27s%20Lawyers%20on%20Demand%20hires%20FT%20GC%20for%20practice%20development%20role&utm_campaign=News%20Alert%20-%209%20July&utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=Email Forget the appointment news (nothing personal, Tim!) but look at how BLP are reacting to the changes in the legal market. For anyone who is 40+ the UK, there is an interesting parallel with what British Airways did with their budget airline called “Fly Go”. The quick version of the story is that they […]
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It is amazing the power of Twitter, even as I only use it to 1% of its potential. I’d been reading through the day’s LPO news, working out what to blog about next, and out jumped a story about Cameron McKenna and Osborne Clarke and their outsource provider Integreon. The headlines certainly were all “doom […]
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This is only part of the story and, sadly, misses the global aspect. Change is happening in the legal market across the globe but in particular in the major English-speaking nations. This story could have been as much about London and the UK as the US. [Australia is immune for now, thanks to their commodity […]
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Deja vu – all over again:) I think I’ve seen this story repeat for the last two years. Infosys is a great company – maybe with some other short term issues distracting it – but there has to be a reason why it has not pulled the trigger and actually bought something. From talking around […]
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It is hard to know where to start on this story, as there are multiple angles to come at it from. 1. For anyone looking to say that the LPO industry is in rewind, has had its day, has failed, etc. they were always going to be waiting for a story like this. But they […]
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» LPOs Stealing Deal Work from Law Firms » Bloomberg Law While being flattered about being mentioned in this recording, I should not let vanity get in the way of substance. The facts are that LPOs ARE taking work from law firms. “Stealing” is not the word I would use, but the net flow is […]
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This is an article I had published in Outsource Magazine. The purpose was to give CFOs the data they need to understand the Business Case that they are sitting on…if they look at outsourcing parts of their own Finance Department. For law firms, it is sometimes a bit hard for the CFO to really […]
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Legal Process Outsourcing Here is the quote that all law firms should read – from a major corporate in a major economy. “While the provision of legal process outsourcing (LPO) and alternative fee arrangements weren’t deal breakers, Salter admitted both are competitive points of difference and of growing importance to AMP.” Over the last few […]
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I am always open to new ideas and ways of working. That is how I got into the Legal Outsourcing world, and it is probably the single common trait that all my clients have had. So, today I read in lawyerist.com about an App that would help manage my emails. It is free so, I […]
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By Edward Brooks [email protected] Legal Outsourcing, Legal Process Outsourcing, LPO, Managing Partner
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times I have been meaning to do this for some time now, so here goes. Apologies for the graphics – couldn’t find a graphic for “10” quickly enough. When you sit in a room full of lawyers, all trying to understand Legal Outsourcing for the first time, it is fascinating to see where the […]
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By Edward Brooks, The LPO Program I had a call recently with Deborah Kops, leading light in the area of Change Management and founder of Sourcing Change (www.sourcingchange.com). There is no way to over-estimate how important Change Management is when it comes to Legal Outsourcing/LPO or any other kind of readjustment of how you […]
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If I was in a Back Office function in any law firm I’d seriously be thinking about my future employment options. When you do benchmarking studies on law firm support functions, they always come out in the bottom quartile. There are many reasons for this, and, to be honest, I’ve also seen some cases of […]
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I am indebted to Antony Smith from the firm Legal Project Management for helping me connect my synapses today. But I am certainly in a contrarian mood today, all starting with reading his interview with Richard Susskind. The British Tabloids are a fantastic read, if you can tolerate their jingoism, bias, and historically dubious methods […]
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Expect the usual bunch of postings about “Ten LPO Predictions for 2013″. For me it is pretty easy. Continued Growth The start of the M&A Trend Repeat. The sector has proven itself, the economy is not improving, law firms are waking up to the real vale from Strategic Legal Process Outsourcing, GCs are changing […]
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Some one wants to buy part of your law firm. Let’s start with what happens in the corporate world when it comes to Mergers and Acquisitions. Using Royal Bank of Scotland as an example, they had a division called Direct Line that they no longer wanted (or needed the cash) so decided to sell. A […]
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Legal Outsourcing on Montego Bay, and how it shapes the future of LPO. As ever, I have Google Alerts to thank for showing me this story. about the Minister of Justice in Jamaica, Senator Mark Golding, promoting his country as an LPO delivery centre. However, it made me start to think about LPO in 2017 […]
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I’m in Campaign Mode. You can help! Peace in Syria, the end of the Fiscal Cliff, a Brit in charge of the Bank of England…all seemingly impossible in today’s world. But surely Good LPO RFPs are achievable! It may sound trivial in comparison to major world issues, but why are “Good LPO RFPs” seemingly elusive. […]
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One of the major trends of 2012 has been the “Right Sourcing” and “Blending” of where services are delivered from. Back in the day, my naive expectation was that transactional Legal Services would either be outsourced or insourced (i.e. kept pretty much the same as currently, albeit with a focus on costs). What has happened […]
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How more “onshore” can you get? London as the new low cost LPO destination? Certainly compared to the traditional legal models, a strong supplier, with strong methodologies and good people can do what is seemingly impossible (but is actually being replicated in other high-cost locations such as New York, Washington DC, etc) i.e. provide better […]
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/manhattan-mini-storage/6190370650/in/photostream The picture in the above link offers a parallel to the LPO market. While I am amused that New Yorkers can be so insular (self focused, self-indulgent…you choose the right phrase), in the LPO space we can also be a bit like that. We have a habit of thinking about LPO ( Legal Process […]
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In the last few years writing this blog on Legal Outsourcing/LPO I have come back to the question of “change” in the business context. Whether it was the demise of Nokia (and maybe soon Blackberry) or the overnight near-extinction of Tom Tom by Google Maps on smartphones, on a very frequent basis businesses and business […]
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Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) throws up significant challenges for the legal profession. Other areas of outsourcing have purely been about value for money – either pure cost reduction or getting more bang for the buck. LPO, on the other hand, is a threat to top line revenue and is a business model (for Law Firms […]
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The state of the LPO market in mid/late 2012 is fascinating. The missing component is a credible reaction to the threat of LPO by US Law Firms in particular. Here are 10 Key Facts that should wake up any Law Firm, wherever they are in the world. 1. 10%. This is the percentage of the […]
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On Friday I gave you the heads-up about my first ever product offering – The LPO Blue Print. The background to this is that I was reviewing my customer base a few months ago, and realised that there a growing number of you now asking, “How Do We Implement Our Strategy?”
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The 2012 GOAL Legal Outsourcing Conference hits New York in 12 days. I can’t attend due to a client visit to Tokyo (my first visit there, so I’m excited about the visit plus the client opportunity). For anyone interested in pushing forward with LPO, I am releasing the unique LPO Blue Print next week. It […]
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Earlier this week I asked US lawyers to see if their firm was on the list below. The purpose was to show that there is a huge, untapped value base within each of these firms that can easily be turned into a profit centre (after so many years in the US, I should really know […]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv8o3LM8gm4&feature=youtu.be See the video here The Bingham McCutcheon announcement has stuck in my head for the last week or so. I know that every client situation is different, but I also thought the legal world had changed. Here’s why I have issues with their strategy.
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The lowest investment I’ve ever seen a Law Firm make to establish a centralised delivery centre, of any more than 50 people, is about $3m – and that is on the cheap side. I’d love to know how much Baker & McKenzie or Clifford Chance invested to establish their offshore delivery centres.
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About 12 months ago I started to blog on LPO/Legal Outsourcing and my experience as a consultant in the space. What was lacking was a snappy title for the blog. While looking at pictures for the millionth revision of The LPO Program website, I chanced across the image above, and suddenly I had it!
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Tomorrow I will give you the answer, but I’ve got 10 minutes before my next client meeting and I know I can fire out about 200 words in that timeframe. Every week I average 3-4 conference calls with prospective Law Firm clients who are further investigating Legal Outsourcing/LPO – in some shape or form. I […]
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We have just released the 2012 Global LPO Market Study. It will let you understand: 1. Key Legal Outsourcing Trends 2. What Your Competitors Are Doing 3. Who Is Buying 4. What They Are Buying 5. The Current Market Size 6. Market Growth Projections
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I have to admit to divided and confused loyalties. As a Scot living in New York, but spending a good chunk of each month back in the UK, I can at least pretend to be impartial. With that perspective, it is surprising to see how far ahead the London law firms are when it comes […]
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Pre Order The 2012 Global LPO Market Study Advanced Notice! Pre-Order Your Copy Of The 2012 Global LPO Market Study now and be the first to understand the: Key Legal Outsourcing Trends, What Your Competitors Are Doing, Who Is Buying, What They Are Buying, The Current Market Size, and Market Growth Projections
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I do make it a point of principle to share and promote all educational materials that come across my (online) desktop. With an active newsletter readership of 2000+ it gives a unique distribution channel for LPO content. I don’t endorse or vet it, nor do we get paid to do this, so it does come […]
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Having grown up in a world that has seen such seemingly permanent things collapse – the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall, Arthur Andersen, Merrill Lynch and, yes I am/was a fan, Glasgow Rangers – nothing should surprise us. On a micro level other things change faster. A very good friend shares an office with a […]
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Is your firm on the list below? If so, read this article with an open mind. There are huge opportunities available – but it takes nerves and a belief that “if you don’t cannibalise your business, then a nimbler, lower cost solution will do it for you”. The core facts are as follows:
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I’m not here to promote Integreon, impressive though they are. For proof of my impartiality I also tweeted a positive message about Pangea3 earlier today. What I liked about this picture was just the sheer size of the numbers involved. The numbers reflect multiple deals – mainly on much shorter contract term than the CMS […]
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Forget scope; this is about philosophy. One of the main findings coming out of our 2012 Global LPO Study is that, while there is a great take up rate, Legal Outsourcing is being used as a tactical weapon, not a strategic solution. While we look for a good time slot to release the Study, I […]
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Another day, another announcement that a big organisation – Lloyds Banking Group in the UK – is encouraging (or actually mandating) that their law firms have an LPO solution. As ever, a short headline on the UK’s Legal Week leads to many questions, such as: 1. What will happen if the law firms do not […]
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I remain impartial about who is the best supplier for any client. We work with clients to assess that on a case by case basis. However, I do like to support any supplier that helps educate the market. Today’s recognition award goes to Pangea3 for getting their case studies out online. One of the current […]
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There has been much talk in the last 18 months about the growth of onshore LPO/Legal Outsourcing delivery. This article in the NY Times captures the wider story affecting financial services in the US, but I wanted to dissect the reasons affecting the legal profession a bit more clearly.
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Sometimes it takes a good newspaper article to confirm what we all know is going on. In the UK external investors have been lining up to get involved with law firms. While not an option for US firms, it is actually a REAL OPTION for US law firms to take maximum advantage of LPO or […]
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A few weeks ago RBS announced that they were only going to appoint Law Firms who had an LPO strategy. As a Scot (based in New York, but working in the UK every month) who advises Law Firms and General Counsel on their LPO strategy, the RBS story reminded me of how little attention I’d […]
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Are You Sitting On Hidden, But Valuable, Assets? A while back Integreon published an amusing blog about an LPO business buying a Law Firm. While that is almost legally feasible in the UK it is many years away from being feasible in the US. I just searched for it and, sadly, they have removed it. […]
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Sadly I don’t think the current Kim is too keen on the rule of law, so I can’t imagine the LPO business there is booming. However, the Integreon job posting below, looking for Korean language skills, did start me thinking. More importantly, as we see the Legal Outsourcing market taking further strides in the US […]
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