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Patent Baristas is a wonderfully designed and executed blawg by a pair of Cincinnati IP (intellectual property) lawyers. Check it out for the coffee theme, even if you don’t give a hoot about patents and IP.
In a recent post, they addressed recent discussions of the outsourcing of legal research to India, which is reported to be especially popular in connection with patent work. This post has implications for other knowledge-work offshore outsourcing. It and several of the appended comments have much to say about false economies, duplication of effort, communication difficulties, other risks of offshoring, and intra-US variations in professional labor costs. The money quote (literally):
[T]his may often be another example of corporations treating patent applications as a commodity when the reality is that patents can make-or-break the entire company. A patent is often the most important link in the corporate organization. A penny-wise, pound-foolish approach is seen over and over with companies that try to squeeze the patent drafting and prosecution costs down and then can’t seem to see the connection whenever they spend $2 million on litigation over a poorly drafted patent.
If you are a corporation interested in reducing your patent expenses, then you should call me to discuss strategies for reducing your costs. What we’ve found is that similar or better cost savings can be achieved by outsourcing patent work not offshore but away from the high-priced coasts. We work with many companies that have found the same work can be performed in the Midwest (we’re in Cincinnati) — but at far lower billing rates. When I had some work done at a Boston firm a few years ago, I was shocked to discover that a third-year associate was billing at a higher rate than our top partners. And he wasn’t even knowledgeable!
Patent Baristas: “Outsourcing Legal Work (to the Midwest)”
Self-serving? Sure, but that doesn’t make it incorrect. And I’ll take the opportunity to be equally self-serving: I will match or beat the hourly rate of any third-year large firm associate at a major East or West Coast law firm. And I have 20 years’ experience in labor and employment law.
Photo credit: Todd Ehlersvia flickr
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Outsourcing legal work is not particularly new in the Philippines according to my sources Europe is one of the highest legal work outsourcers.