Offshoring receives an indifferent press, not least because most of us have, at some time, engaged in semantic jousts with poorly paid call centre operatives possessing an inadequate grasp of colloquial English. Punting customer-facing jobs to Mumbai or Manila is fraught with risk – witness the growing phenomenon of ‘reverse offshoring’, where companies cut their reputational losses and repatriate.

At a time of soaring unemployment, businesses also have a difficult job justifying the practice on corporate social responsibility grounds.

Nevertheless, the genie is out of the bottle and it is difficult to see a reversal of the trend for more sophisticated ‘knowledge economy’ jobs to be transferred overseas.

As we disclose this week (see feature), cash-strapped corporate counsel are beginning to ask external advisers about offshoring intentions as they see their own budgets squeezed.

Offshoring pioneer Kerry Underwood believes firms will be forced to be less risk-averse about this area, now the Legal Services Act is in place.

‘No one should think the big players will do routine, commoditised legal work here,’ he warns.

He is surely right, but we can’t help but notice the potential implications. If the so-called ‘grunt work’ is outsourced, how will indigenous lawyers train? Answers on a postcard, please.