The past couple of years have seen a paradigm shift towards digital dictation by law firms which allows them to electronically distribute dictated documents to centralised document production facilities, enabling more efficient processing of documents in electronic files, rather than physical audio tapes. This has led some firms to consider where their costly document production facilities should be located and whether they should be outsourced.
This trend is driving more firms to consider offshoring their support processes, especially as the legal industry has some of the highest support costs in the professional services sector. Some outsourcing vendors have established low-cost offshore processing centres in countries such as India, with claims of guaranteed quality, service and security levels. Already we have seen a number of firms, including Allen & Overy and Baker & McKenzie, piloting outsourcing arrangements with companies in India, the Philippines and Indonesia.
