ABA says ‘yes’ to legal services outsourcing

U.S. lawyers are free to outsource legal work, including to lawyers or nonlawyers outside the country, if they protect confidential information, ensure that the service providers are competent and suitably trained, and charge a reasonable fee for the work.

Those are the findings of ABA Ethics Opinion 08-451, which covers the ethics obligations of firms that outsource legal work.

The opinion comes as outsourcing soars in popularity, especially to foreign countries. In each of the last three years, the legal services outsourcing industry has grown by 60 percent, according to the Washington Post. In India alone, its estimated $80 million industry expects to grow to $4 billion by 2015.

When legal services are outsourced abroad, the opinion acknowledges the challenges in ensuring competence and in supervising others doing the work. Minimally, outsourcing lawyers should conduct reference checks and background investigations of the service providers, says the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, which issued the opinion. Further, outsourcing lawyers may also wish to interview the primary professionals on a project and even visit the premises of the service provider.

The opinion suggests that it "may be necessary for the lawyer to provide information concerning the outsourcing relationship to the client, and perhaps to obtain the client's informed consent to the engagement of lawyers or nonlawyers who are not directly associated with the lawyer or law firm that the client retained."

ABA members may read the full ethics opinion here.

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