Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO)

Legal Process Outsourcing: Overview

Many corporate legal departments have begun exploring the feasibility and practicality of outsourcing and offshoring routine legal services.  While some departments have moved towards Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO), only to pull business back into domestic firms, others have capitalized on an opportunity for legal significant cost savings on routine, repeatable tasks while better leveraging in-house expertise.  Legal Process Outsourcing is still an emerging and dynamic area, and more some legal departments, worth some consideration.

In order to capitalize on this sourcing and savings opportunity, some legal departments may wish to have outside validation of the initial Legal Process Outsourcing assessment as well as assistance in the development and implementation (including effective vendor management) of the transition plan.

LEGAL PROCESS OUTSOURCING: Objectives

The primary goal of a successful Legal Process Outsourcing sourcing initiative is to capture significant cost savings for the corporation.  Typically, this involves evaluating leading providers, designing a transition plan, and developing and implementing vendor management tools.  A dedicated focus on Legal Process Outsourcing (supported by dedicated consulting resources) can accelerate this process, rounding out the opportunity assessment and moving to a structured sourcing approach designed to achieve cost savings in the short and long term.

LEGAL PROCESS OUTSOURCING: SOLutions and Savings

Argopoint can provide significant implementation support and assistance in the following areas:

• Performing and validating initial legal process outsourcing research (e.g., compare “make vs. buy” options, conducting due diligence on providers, exploring additional service areas)
• Providing project management/facilitation support for legal process outsourcing sourcing initiative(s)

Developing (and customizing) vendor management tools and structured transition plan, including:

• Completed legal process outsourcing opportunity assessment and recommendations
• Initial cost savings potential analysis
• Business requirements/provider selection criteria (e.g., legal research and e-discovery)
• Formal quantitative and qualitative “scoring methodology” (e.g., how legal process outsourcing providers are evaluated using selection criteria
• Request for Proposals (RFPs)
• Scorecards (summarizing evaluations of legal process outsourcing providers)
• Robust “make vs. buy” financial analysis
• “Evaluation Workshops” design and facilitation
• Recommendation of preferred providers
• Transition plan for legal process outsourcing solutions
• Development of overall sourcing strategy (or strategies)
• Legal process outsourcing vendor management system