Top legal process outsourcing providers plan ‘aggressive expansion’
Two of the top three legal process outsourcing (LPO) providers are plotting aggressive growth in anticipation of a flood of mandates in 2010, the Gazette has learned.
The news comes shortly after the third LPO provider in the trio, CPA Global, announced similarly ambitious plans for rapid expansion of its LPO workforce last month.
Pangea3 co-chief executive David Perla told the Gazette that his company plans to boost its 350 LPO staff, who include 280 fee-earners, to 500 staff in total by the end of 2010 – and that he expects that number to ‘grow further’ from 2011 onwards.
Integreon legal services vice-president Mark Ross said that his company plans to add to its 500 LPO staff, who include around 375 lawyers, throughout 2010. Ross said that Integreon is planning a stock market listing within the next three years, and is aiming to double its fourth quarter 2009 revenues in the last quarter of 2010. He said that LPO growth will be concentrated in South Africa, the Philippines and China, while its established centre in Mumbai, India, will also expand.
Both Ross and Perla said that they are receiving mandates predominantly from corporate legal departments rather than law firms. Perla said that corporate and litigation LPO services are currently the most popular among in-house teams.
‘In the next six months, a lot of major corporates will begin talking publicly about LPO,’ Ross predicted.
Integreon and CPA have both received financial injections from private equity investors since the start of 2010, and all three companies said they have strong relationships with interested external financiers.
Pangea3 names multinationals General Electric, Sony and American Express among its LPO clients, while CPA names Microsoft and mining company Rio Tinto. Integreon works with magic circle firm Allen & Overy, and City firms Simmons & Simmons and Osborne Clarke on LPO.
Integreon and CPA undertake LPO as part of a wider range of outsourcing work, while Pangea3 undertakes only LPO work.
Indian research company Value Notes ranks CPA, Integreon and Pangea3 as the three ‘pacesetters’ in the global LPO market.
Comments
limitations of some offshore LPOs
Integreon, Pangea3, and CPA have well-oiled PR machines and deserve credit for that. Green Point Legal Services offers a more sophisticated business model (namely, bar-admitted lawyers working from Israel at attractive rates) and we continue to compete strongly against these firms in quality and pricing. We're happy to continue to fly under the radar as we grow our business.
There are limitations that these LPOs must live with because the vast majority of their personnel consist of professionals who were trained in law but have not passed the bar exam. We offer US educated, bar admitted lawyers who have practiced law before moving to Israel.
Working from our offices in Jerusalem, our arrangement allows for much greater visibility and accountability – the same level that would be found whether a firm is freelancers or in-house staff. The best the other LPOs can do to mitigate this is to have American lawyers serve as project managers.
REAL LPO INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
Kudos to all top guns of Indian LPO industry. It may be the magic of PR firms but to my understanding being the Consultant to this industry, these firms have actually dared to perform and help the industry grow. It is all about building up the trust amongst buyers and these are the biggies who are helping others to grow along.
I would like to invite my friend Ken from Israel in our ensuing Global LPO Conference in July, Delhi, India to meet all of us and learn where are we heading. This conference is like a real interactive platform amongst buyers and all vendors.
Thank you.
Pankaj
LPO in india
I agree with Pankaj. My advice to Mr. Ken is not just to attend the LPO conferences, but to visit few LPO firms in india, and to know how they function and the strength of their talent.
Mr. Ken claims to be providing high quality services, but most of the indian LPO's have ISO 9001 certification for Quality Management and some LPO's like pune based Mindcrest and Bangalore based ClutchGroup, Hyderabad based Quislex also have internatinally recognized information security certifications, like ISO, EU Safe Harbor etc.
I am working in a LPO, where we successfully won a Document review pilot conducted by a top US company, and we defeated at least 2 US based and 1 phillipines based LPO in that race. Legal department of the company was so impressed that they visited our premises within 2 months and we could see the results now. the counsels were very much impressed by both the quality and productivity of the team.
Mr. Ken, mere passing bar exams won't make u the best, but actual experience and commitments do.
all the best.
False Claims
As a counsel for a Fortune 20 corporation I often converse with my peers at other corporate legal departments. I am certain that Pangea (not to name anyone) is not very popular among the 2 corporations they name as their clients. I would certainly scrutinize further the claims being made behind those mandates and not pay attention to the PR folks paid to impress us. I do business with a major LPO provider not listed here who can certainly make bigger claims than the 3 here but have chosen to concentrate on measurable results rather than paying lip service.