PANGEA3 LLC

Pangea3 is a featured provider in a New York Times article about legal outsourcing which prominently quotes two of our own, Vice President of Litigation Services, Greg McPolin, and Associate Vice President of Litigation, Chris Wheeler. “Legal Outsourcing Pulls Western Talent to India,” is rosy about the future of legal outsourcing, Heather Timmons even quoting Harvard Law’s David Wilkins who says on LPO, “This is not a blip, this is a big historical movement.”

Two important aspects of the LPO industry are repeatedly highlighted in the article. The first: LPO is now a “…mainstream part of the global business of law.” Some of the largest, most well respected companies in the world outsource legal services, because it makes them better companies—more efficient and more cost effective. This is not about labor-arbitrage; it’s about transformation of the way legal services are delivered and consumed.

Secondly, rather than glossing over the thorny issue of “wait-aren’t-you-giving-India-the-work-of-hard-working-domestic-lawyers,” the article takes it head on—and finds that while there is no going back from LPO now that the service has been introduced, providers are also not poised to replace traditional law firms (nor are we interested in doing that). Timmons brings attention to the fact that, “Employees at legal outsourcing companies in India are not allowed by Indian law to give legal advice to clients in the West, no matter their qualifications.” Rather, LPO providers have created streamlined, client driven business models, and do not replace the specialized skills of senior lawyers. Again, it’s about change and transformation, not about cheaper lawyers.

The New York Times agrees that the business of law is changing, to the benefit of those who need to hire lawyers. To read the full article click here. Timmons’s point that many seasoned Western lawyers are jumping at the chance to go to India is further emphasized in The Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

It seems the bad economy is good news for the legal process outsourcing (LPO) industry. ValueNotes, which publishes independent research on the industry, came out in June with “Outsourcing in the Changing Marketplace,” an article listing a deluge of factors that have contributed to the LPO industry’s fast assent in recent years.

ValueNotes cites “the downward pressure on costs, growing litigation, increasing compliance measures and the increasing use of technology” as the four crucial reasons companies are turning to LPO providers for legal services, and they are dead on with their analysis. As the economy improves, these forces remain prominent; both corporations and law firms continue to scramble to cut costs in order to post profits and remain competitive. LPOs allow lawyers to both lower costs and reallocate their time to high value work.

At the same time that corporations and law firms would like to use LPOs more, LPO providers are improving their technology, growing more experienced and becoming even more capable of quickly producing front office legal work. As a result, contracts with legal process outsourcing providers are expanding in number and volume, and all signs suggest that the offshoring trend will continue surging forward in the legal services market. KV8PZ7PYM73Z

Pangea3 has become an even more global company of late, with offices expanding at hypersonic speed on three continents. In the past year we’ve added over 250 employees; where are all these people located? Here’s a quick update.

Delhi: In March we ramped up our Delhi office, purchasing 14,000 square feet of gleaming office space in Noida, a riverside Delhi suburb and buzzing hub of international industry. Our new state-of-the-art facility will grow with us, adding 300 more seats to the current capacity of 165. We have received thousands of resumes, and in the past few months alone we have hired over 100 of India’s most accomplished law school graduates. Eventually this office will overtake its 36,000 square foot Mumbai sibling in size and number of employees.

Europe: No strangers to the Continent, we have been working with European clients since 2006 and we’ve had an office in Europe since 2009. We recently added a London base as well, to better service customers in the UK and supplement our growing business in Europe.

Australia: In April we announced our entrance into the Land of Oz, cementing a strategic alliance with Australian firm Advent Lawyers. We will supplement their low cost/highly specialized legal work and with Pangea3, Advent will drastically increase the range of services they are able to offer.

You can find more information about our recent growth on our website.

Pangea3 recently expanded our discount to Corporate Executive Board’s General Counsel Roundtable (GCR) members under GCR’s Vendor Preferred Pricing Program. Our new offer will provide GCR members with an exclusive annual discount in all of our service lines: litigation, intellectual property, corporate, and risk management and compliance. We were the first to be invited to join GCR’s Vendor Preferred Pricing Program, and we’re proud to continue working with Corporate Executive Board’s GCR. In the words of Pangea3 Co-CEO David Perla, “The General Counsel Roundtable is an excellent resource for thought leadership, best practice information and benchmark reports ….We are pleased to participate in this program and to provide GCR members with additional savings on our end-to-end legal solutions.” To learn more about this new discount, read the press release.

With the credit market still tough as building nails, it’s more important than ever that construction companies know the deal they’re putting together is a good one.

In a recent article in Building magazine, Pangea3 Co-CEO David Perla convincingly explains the important place legal process outsourcing (LPO) providers should have in construction’s wakening mergers and acquisition activities.

By nature, large scale construction firms have a vast number of contracts. Bad contracts can fly under the traditional due diligence radar, and a host of rotten apples can eventually spoil the stability of the acquiring company. Perla points out that while it would be absurdly expensive and tedious for a traditional law firm to go through each contract during due diligence, lawyers from an LPO provider are well equipped for the job and can do it at a fraction of the price.

“Deep dive” due diligence may not be the first topic a board of directors thinks about, but in this market boards are bound to recognize its necessity.

To read the full article, see the July Issue of Building Magazine.