Legal Service Entrepreneurs in India
QuisLex (Hyderabad, India), one of our strategic partners for document review work, is a good example of the type of aggressive legal services company that is emerging in India. QuisLex provides legal support services to corporate law departments and law firms in the U.S. Their New York office houses the marketing department while a staff of twenty-two (seventeen of them lawyers) performs the legal support work in Hyderabad. At the end of its workday, a U.S. law firm, for example, might submit a project to QuisLex staffers, who could complete the project by the start of the next U.S. business day.
CEO Ram Vasudevan lives in New York and works out of QuisLex’s New York office. He earned his MBA at Cornell University and his law degree from Columbia University. His previous law-firm experience includes three years at Sidley Austin Brown & Wood and four at Skadden Arps.
COO Sundari Pisupati lives in Hyderabad with her family and works out of the Hyderabad office. She earned her five-year undergrad/law degree at the National Law School of India University (and was valedictorian) as well as a law degree from Columbia University. Her law-firm experience includes five years at Sidley Austin.
Together, they started QuisLex based on a shared realization: that a significant percentage of the practice of law involves work that can be done remotely by very bright individuals trained in U.S. law. Initially, U.S. clients are attracted by the lower cost of the legal support services completed by trained staff in India, but clients stay because of the efficiency and because of the quality of the work.. Confidentiality, of course, is the highest priority. Every employee is bound by confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. No work-related issues are raised outside the office. Work cannot be carried outside the office. All printed matter is destroyed immediately after use. And all client-related work is uploaded onto a secure online server for security and version control.
Young lawyers are attracted to QuisLex because of its meritocratic principles. Traditionally, the practice of law in India has been, and to some extent still is, dominated by family-controlled law firms. Businesses like QuisLex, however, offer young attorneys the opportunity for advancement based on merit. Young attorneys are also motivated by the intellectual challenge of learning and mastering aspects of American law, which to them has the added cache of qualifying as international lawyers (and it pays on average about fifty percent more in salary). These young and ambitious attorneys also understand the context of the industry in which they are participating. This nascent industry has the potential of growing into a multi-billion-dollar market. Forrester Research predicts that the equivalent of $4.3 billion in U.S. legal wages will be outsourced overseas by 2015.
For more on QuisLex, go to www.offshore-legal-services.com/knowledge2.htm for photos and a profile of one of their young lawyers.