India, US launch joint legal group

[OhioChick]

< 29 Dec, 2006 0950hrs ISTIANS >

WASHINGTON: India and the United States have formed a bilateral working group of legal experts to promote greater interaction between legal professionals and to facilitate trade in legal services between them.

Formation of the group as part of the ongoing work of the US-India Trade Policy Forum was announced on Thursday by Deputy US trade representative Karan Bhatia following recent meetings in New Delhi with Indian Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai.

"Legal services are integral to today's complex, global economy. Indian Commerce Secretary Gopal Pillai and I agreed that establishing a Legal Services Working Group is a priority in our bilateral dialogue," said Bhatia.

"We are pleased that we have been able to move forward with the creation of the Working Group before the end of this year."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_US_launch_joint_legal_group/articleshow/969644.cms

[lapfog_1]

1. first the engineers, now the lawyers... next the doctors

and last the management and bankers...

there really is no end to outsourcing.

that is... until the standard of living here (for the non-owners) is that of the third world.

[Tempest]

4. It's already the doctors

The reading of x-rays at U.S. hospitals has been outsourced to India.

http://tinyurl.com/ykmohg

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I'm exasperated.

Went to law school, worked hard, took exams w/o cheating, graduated, studied some more, passed one bar exam, failed another. Couldn't get a job (and still can't) as an associate. Have had to work as a legal secretary, legal assistant, and/or paralegal to learn how to practice law from the bottom up attendant with the low pay, the lessened job title, and hope to know enough to either get hired or start own firm. And it builds humility as well as provides perspective of how the systems works.

Now law firms can bypass hiring "locals" by e-mail and attachments, dictation via computer, fax machines, and DHL. Typing, research, document preparation need not be done "inhouse" anymore. Like medical transciptionists, another specialty is being phased out and offered to employees many thousands of miles away who will work for less and will provide equivalent, if not better, work product.

I dunno. Aside my mercenary sentiments, I am skeptical about having legal work literally leave the office as the work is document sensitive, meaning that sometimes you need one particular piece of paper and the only way you can get it is to search for hours, page by page in voluminous files. Or finding an obscure fact in a law school journal or treatise. But I guess that is so comparatively rare that the law firm will risk it.

[cap]

3. learn how to litigate...

cant offshore that. H1b lawyers wont play well in front of juries.