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Legal Outsourcing Suit Spotlights Surveillance Fears

Tom Ramstack / The Washington Times:
Some lawyers are worried that the growing practice of outsourcing legal work to overseas companies is undermining the constitutional guarantees that protect the privacy of lawyer-client communications, leaving them vulnerable to electronic spying by the federal government. Paralegal firms in India are doing a booming business handling the routine legal work of American law firms, such as drafting contracts, writing patents, indexing documents or researching laws. These so-called legal process outsourcing firms charge an average of about $40 an hour for their work, about one-quarter to one-third of what the work would cost in the United States. But a lawsuit filed this month by the Bethesda firm of Newman, McIntosh & Hennessey argues that the constitutional guarantees that protect confidential communications between lawyers and clients may not apply when legal work is transmitted abroad - typically by e-mail, fax or telephone.

Posted by Editor at May 31, 2008 12:07 PM