Outsourcing to India -- U.S legal Claims to be Outsourced to India

The Outsourcing Industry sure seems to be on a roll with the U.S. Legal Claims processing being eager to be processed in India. The legal work would be a significant departure from mere data capturing and imaging. Half a billion dollars worth of money is to be made in this business, believes one of the largest legal firms in the US representing Indian tech companies in California.

Ropers Majeski Kohn and Bentley (RMKB), a California-based legal firm with 130 lawyers on its payroll, is one of the top-25 legal firms in the state and among the biggest representing Indian IT businesses in the US.

This firm is in negotiations with Indian legal firms in Delhi and Mumbai to integrate Indian and US legal systems and bring in an Outsourcing company to handle some serious legal claims processing work.
RKMB represents HCL Technologies, Planet Asia, Transworld, Headstrong and Computech. It also handles the TechSpan and Headstrong merger that took place in early November to form a $100-million revenue company offering a wide range of infotech services.

“Companies in the United States want to do legal work on a fixed fee basis. Claims related legal work is huge business. However, it has a significant component of repetitive work that nonetheless requires much higher intellectual input work as compared to legal data processing and image capture. This is where we are looking for tie ups with legal firms in India,” said Michael J Ioannou, attorney at law, RMKB informed.
He said that his firm is taking up a pilot project for analysis in India. The project will involve Indian partners and focus on a few select legal cases. “After we assess the success of the initiative we will replicate the process on a larger scale,” he further added.

The legal firm is eyeing the significant savings that it would make in terms of legal fees to be paid to US lawyers for claims-related work. The firm is first targeting medical imaging, medical review and medical records cases pertaining to personal injury and other medico-legal issues.
According to the executives at this firm, The Indian Outsourcing partners will do the back office legal work while US lawyers in US courts will argue the cases. RKMB is also eyeing litigation work pertaining to Indian tech companies in the US.

“Most offshore Indian companies are better of facing litigation in the United States than in India as the process is much quicker in the US and does not keep IT firms in limbo for long periods of time. An average case will be on trial for one to two years which is a much shorter time period than in India,” said Ioannou. He added with a wink that Indian Outsourcing firms are also lucrative because they pay well and they pay on time.

India is already doing legal Outsourcing work from the US. Even as former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay and former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling are readying to face trial in the case pertaining to the meltdown in the global energy giant Enron, a Mohali based IT firm has been busy processing documents pertaining to the case.

IDS Infotech Limited has captured 37 million images of Enron documents and converted them into an electronic format. The work came to it through a US entity that outsourced the data conversion.

As for RKMB's previous work, RMKB has represented one of the top five public Indian companies in acquisition of a US software technology company and another in acquiring a small size Ohio and North Carolina based Outsourcing company. RKMB has also handled litigation work for some Indians.

Priyanka. S

Outsourcing to India : Debt Collectors on the prowl!!!

Debt defaulters beware!! India has entered the new arena of debt collection and recovery in terms of Outsourcing. It comes complete with assurances of reducing debt recovery cost and the time needed for the process.

General Electric Co, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings and American Express are some of the Outsourcing companies that are using their India-based staff to pursue US credit card debts and mortgage payments by phoning delinquent debtors or tracking their whereabouts.

US industry executives say that low-cost Indian Outsourcing operations could influence the $18 billion dollar-a-year collections business works in America -- pushing it towards a more focused and persistent pursuit of ever smaller amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Outsourcing companies in India are now offering third party debt collection services to US, European banks and other companies according to the newspaper reports.

Indian debt collectors are also opening their own offices or buying companies in North America to drum up more business. According to Indian Outsourcing executives, lower salary and technology expenses than their American rivals, can significantly reduce debt recovery costs. Thus, allowing US companies to go after even the smallest of debts. Furthermore, the Indian Outsourcing Company’s 24-hour service, can also improve recovery time according to the newspaper reports.

Priyanka. S