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The View from Mumbai - The American Lawyer, ALM, September 2006
U.S. EXECUTIVES WHO 1 hire Indian lawyers, take note. On July 12, the day after terrorists Med hundreds of people on Murnbai's commuter trains, the lawyers of Murnbai's outsourcing firm Pangea3 showed up for work as usual.
"Mumbai is an incredibly resilient city," says Antony Alex, Pangea3S vice president of Iegal services, adding, "I suppose that this is the only way the city can send a message to the terrorists that such incidents will not shut the city down." (Murnbai was threatened with another terrorist attack in August, prompting heavy security measures.)
Pangea3's new office is located above an art deco cinema. There, among the blond-wood interiors, AIex oversees 80 or so lawyers who research patents, review documents, and draft contracts, all under U.S. law and for U.S. clients. Launched in 2005, the company employs as many lawyers as the largest Indian law firms. And it plans to hire hundreds more.
The firm's angel is chairman Lawrence Graev, who was a name partner at Manhattan private equity boutique O'Sullivan Graev & Karabell before leaving in 2000 and becoming a private investor. Famously profitable, 0's ullivan Graev became a prized target for firms trylng to crack the New York market, and merged with O'Melveny & Myers in 2002.
By then, Graev was seeking new ways to unlock d u e from the practice of law. His GIenRock Group, LLC, led a $4 rniIlion investment in the start-up for Pangea3, and he was named chairman last March. Graev envisions outfits like Pangea3 taking on much of the profession's grunt work, forcing U.S. law firms to innovate. "I believe [the legal world] is going to change because of this," he says.
Pangea3 charges clients between $30 and $75 per hour. Even with steep markups of its contract attorneys' fees, cofounder David Perla says Pangea3 offers a better deal than its U.S. counterparts. Perla says he is focused on signing Iong-tenn contracts that save clients even more. More than a dozen Fortune SO0 companies have become clients, he says, and some major law firms have expressed interest. He declined to name the firms.
Graev is calling on his network within the profession, "I've opened up my Rolodex," he says. In addition to the savings, he and Perla are pitching the talent, which they say is dram from India's best and brightest.
Graev MI1 SOOIL see for himself-he's planning his first trip to India in October. "They wanted the new office to be completely ready for me," he says. Fair enough, he paid for it.
