Legal outsourcing has been profiled as an easy way for attorneys, law firms, and even large Fortune 500 companies to save not only money but time as well. Michigan is home to three fledgling legal outsourcing firms. Among these outsourcing service providers is LegalEase Solutions L.L.C. According to Tariq Akbar, CEO of LegalEase Solutions L.L.C., the company began in 2004 and has three offices worldwide: one in Canton, Mich. and two others in Cochin and Chennai, India. One advantage to legal outsourcing would be that projects could be done in a more time efficient manner.

“With a company like ours — where we do a third of the work here in the United States, and the rest of it is done offshore — you virtually have a 24-hour workforce,” Tariq Hafeez, LegalEase Solutions L.L.C. president and general counsel, said.“Basically, around 10 p.m. here, in Michigan, is 8 o’clock in the morning in India, so we can have our attorneys working here until 5 or 6 p.m. in Michigan and then after a four hour gap, the work is picked up again in India. So we can get large projects done, or even short projects done; at a much shorter time than it would take otherwise.” According to the LegalEase Solutions Web site, once a client has contacted LegalEase Solutions and their information is collected, the information is transferred over to lawyers in India, the project is then researched and prepared and reviewed, and then given back to the client for their review and use of the product.

The India-based attorneys have access to Lexis Nexis and other online research tools in order to complete projects from any jurisdiction, according to the site, and Indiabased legal professionals must have a minimum of five years experience before being hired by LegalEase Solutions.

“The people we’re working with are truly some of the smartest and brightest people we have met internationally;’ Akbar said. “These are really smart, creative, and talented people and what we’re doing is tapping into their intellectual capital. You’re actually tapping into this huge, vast resource of the rest of the world who are willing to direct their creative talents, their minds towards making the entire legal industry a little more efficient.”

“Lawyers have just begun to realize that outsourcing can benefit them just as outsourcing has benefited other industries in the United States,” Hafeez said. There may be those that are concerned or unwilling to turn to legal outsourcing for fear of displacement, however, Akbar disagrees and believes that legal outsourcing is not only a “new trend” but “it’s becoming a necessity” “So much of the law is not just sitting at a desk writing and researching — so much of it is actually active negotiation, face-to-face contact, being in court, and none of that is going to be threatened by outsourcing,” Hafeez agreed. “What we serve to do is make the process a lot more efficient:’ Akbar said. “Nearly all kinds of law firms and legal departments can use our services in some capacity,” Akbar noted.

“Our main clients today are firms with a lot of litigation work who need the litigation support and corporate legal departments who are interested in cutting costs and keeping some work in-house.” “This is probably a good time for lawyers and law firms to try legal outsourcing out because a company like ours is really willing to engineer our processes around our clients. If we have a client who wants things done in a very specific way — we’ll make sure to do it that way because were new enough and we want to’ bring on. as much clientele as possible,” Hafeez said. “We don’t even invoice our clients until they are satisfied with our work, so it’s really a no risk proposition.”