Legal Outsourcing to Israel Is Professionally Wise and Economically Sound

While Israel does not offer the same savings as India or the Philippines, Israel offers much more: the same high quality work product from the United States at significant savings. With more U.S. educated and U.S. licensed attorneys moving to Israel every year it has become professionally wise and economically sound to outsource to Israel your legal services.

Five Reasons to Outsource Overseas
1. Administrative costs, office space and utility expenses are much less overseas.
2. Small businesses or start-ups can enjoy full staff without the full overhead.
3. Payroll expenses are reduces substantially. Social Security, Medicare, medical insurance, sick and vacation add up to 30% to in-house salaries. These costs disappear when you outsource to Israel.
4. When facing a one-time application or business project, outsource it. Why revamp your operations for a one-time job when you can send it overseas and reap the benefits.
5. When you outsource administrative tasks and "chore" jobs, you enable your in-house staff to focus on core functions such as meeting clients, appearing court and substantive legal research, writing and strategizing.

Seven Reasons to Outsource to Israel
1. Israel possesses a critical mass of English speakers from the mass of recent immigrants from the US. These English speaking Israelis are also fully knowledgeable in American culture. In addition, many native born Israelis speak English fluently because it is mandatory in Israeli schools.

2. The Israeli legal system is compatible to the US system. Since both the US and Israeli legal systems come from England, they are similar.

3. Israel is one of the top entrepreneurial countries. High-Tech startups are always emerging in Israel.

4. The Israeli workforce is one of the most educated, talented and technology proficient in the world. Israel has the highest ratio worldwide of engineers in the workforce.

5. Outsourcing to Israel yields competitive prices when compared to US companies.

6. History of successful business partnerships with US companies.

7. Israel is a western leaning nation with a cultural connection to the US. Many Israelis are educated and earn professional certifications and degrees in the US.

While much of the world has been crippled by the worldwide economic crisis, Israel suffered a brief recession and moved onward. Israel possesses an Information Technology services market valued at $1.6 billion and analysts predict growth to $2 billion by 2014.

Israel was rated by AT Kearney, a consulting firm, as one of the most attractive places for outsourcing.

When outsourcing was beginning to boom in 2006, the Boston Globe reported:

"[Israel] differentiates itself from India and the Far East by offering a vast pool of highly-educated workers who are native English speakers and share a cultural affinity with the West. Israel is in a unique position due to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from around the world. This is where Israel has its competitive edge. They are able to cut costs without compromising on quality."

Such words are truer today than in 2006 as immigration from America has increased in recent years.

Jonathan Easton
President
Exact Legal Review
718-487-9896
http://exactlegalreview.com/

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Seven Tips When Choosing a Legal Outsourcing Firm

One blogger compared outsourcing to buying a wedding dress - a transaction filled with hope and excitement followed by seven years of stress, disagreements and legal hassles.

If this were true, outsourcing of legal services such as document review and e-discovery would not be the billion-dollar industry that it is today. It was reported last year that more than $250 billion is spent on legal services around the world. Because not all legal services may be outsourced, it is estimated that almost $111.2 billion in legal services are outsourced from the U.S. every year.

As with any business transaction, it is important to investigate every detail and prepare for every foreseeable outcome. This is especially true when a law firm is sending tens of thousands of highly confidential documents from a multi-million dollar corporate client for document review.

Below is a discussion of seven pieces of advice to help you choose the best document review outsourcing firm.

Seven Tips to Select the Best Legal Outsourcing Company

1. Evaluate. Evaluate what are your needs and goals. Contemplate what processes you want to outsource and why you want to send them out of your office. To answer the "why" question, it is important to determine how outsourcing to Israel or another country will free your resources for other more important legal tasks.

2. Interview. Interview your potential providers as if you were hiring an in-house employee. Your legal outsourcing firm must be a proper fit in terms of skills, attitude and personality.

3. Focus on Important Variables. When meeting with prospective legal service providers, do not get caught up on details and "worst case" scenarios. It is more productive to discuss scope of work, performance standards, pricing, management and quality review. Also, do not rush through the selection process as it is better to take a little extra time to get it right the first time.

4. Be Reasonable. When negotiating contract terms, do not suggest tough terms to which nobody can logically agree. Instead, propose sensible terms that will enhance the mutual success of the contractual relationship.

5. Be Clear and Concise. Although outsourcing e-discovery projects is complicated, the contract does not need to be as thick as a law school textbook. When drafting the contract, cover all of the important terms, but make it clear, simple and serviceable.

6. Manage. In order to successfully manage the legal outsourcing project that you are sending overseas, it is recommended that you build your team BEFORE you sign any contract. If the management team has a role in forming the relationship, the likelihood of success is enhanced significantly. In addition, establish effective risk management into the contract. Normally, parties to an e-discovery contract attempt to shift the risks to the other. More importantly, build into the agreement good risk management terms such as security, privacy and disaster recovery.

7. Take a Collaborative Approach. From the negotiations to the contract-signing to the execution, operate with a collaborative tone. A collaborative tone will bring about trust, flexibility and success. The document review outsourcing company will negotiate more flexibly if it senses your cooperation. In addition, collaboration will motivate all parties to work harder to achieve contractual goals.

When outsourcing is done properly, it is a win-win situation professionally and financially. Performance yields benefits for all sides, whereas failure elicits bad consequences. Following these seven tips will place you in a much better position to build a long-term and positive relationship with your document review provider.

Exact Legal Review is a document review company offering English speaking, U.S. educated and U.S. licensed attorneys at offshore prices. Email at jonathan@exactlegalreview.com or call 718-487-9896 for more information.

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