Excellent post on changes in legal outsourcing from Simon Chester at SLAW:

First news is Microsoft’s announcement today that it’s following Rio Tinto’s lead and route a fair amount of routine legal work to Gurgaon. Microsoft has been outsourcing basic intellectual property and patent maintenance to CPA Global since the mid-Noughties with around 70 CPA staff. However, this is a separate new arrangement for general legal work…

…Second development goes in the other direction. CPA is inspecting sites in Northern England for its own outsourcing centre to take on 10-20 lawyers and paralegals for low-level legal tasks. The talk is for expansion to several hundred legal personnel…

…The American Ambassador to India expressed concerns yesterday about economic distortions and tax-driven investment in outsourcing. The headline is U.S. wants Indian firms to create jobs in America, which didn’t quite line up with what he said, but outbound Indian investment is burgeoning…

I find it interesting how many years many litigation support and e-discovery staffing outfits were clamoring to find a way to break into India, and several did.  Are we now seeing a trend where Indian LPOs attempt to make there way into the States.  In some instances, I know that this is already happening, but it will be interesting to see how it continues long term.