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Many legal-outsourcing companies have sprung up recently. Most of the work goes to India, as India has cheap rates, a common law system, and many people who can speak English. Much of the work shipped overseas has been the laborious stuff, such as document reviews.
The ABA, in an ethics opinion dated August 5th but announced August 26th, has stated that sending legal work overseas is ethically permissible as long as the lawyer doing the outsourcing takes steps to ensure the protection of client confidences and the preservation of attorney-client privilege. The advisory also states that attorneys should check to make sure that foreign lawyers are suitably trained and competent and that bills for outsourced work are reasonable.
Some bar groups, such as the New York City Bar Association, had already approved outsourcing, but the ABA being on board is quite significant.
The people who have opposed outsourcing the most are contract attorneys, who are the ones most often called in to do what the outsourcing will do. Indeed, this opinion will probably destroy much of the market for smaller firms and solo attorneys who wish to have a semblance of a life while still practicing law, as their jobs will be shipped overseas.
Critics of the ABA claim that it is run by wealthy partners at large law firms, and the decision is expected to spur widespread vilification.
If the experiences of the tech industry are any indication, however, after an initial surge of work to India, many firms will find that the quality of work will suffer as all the good, trained workers there are quickly snapped up. In a few years, then, many of these jobs will probably come back. Others, however, are likely gone forever.
