Rio Tinto legal chief quits for a new role at CPA Global”,

Rio Tinto legal chief quits for a new role at CPA Global”, read today’s headline. This does come as a surprise but surely great news for CPA Global and the LPO industry.

Leah Cooper is the managing attorney at the mining giant Rio Tinto. She is responsible for the overall management of Rio Tinto’s multinational legal department (comprised of over 100 lawyers). Leah was the driving force behind the Rio Tinto-CPA Global deal. In May 2009, Rio Tinto awarded a contract to CPA Global. Rio Tinto offshored contract review and drafting, legal research and document review to CPA Global. When I spoke to Leah two weeks back, she sounded quite upbeat about the LPO industry. Talking about the outsourceability of the services, Leah said “Initially, the work undertaken by CPA Global included contract review and drafting, legal research, and document review. However, the scope of work is expected to expand to cover other routine legal services work.”

Cost control has become a pertinent issue across businesses. Corporate counsels have been worried about managing their external counsels and are building cost effective systems to handle their ad-hoc legal needs. Corporations are increasingly exploring alternatives such as contract attorneys and offshore service providers (LPOs), especially for certain services that require junior associates. Said Leah, “Cost was an issue but not the only issue to consider offshoring. We contracted CPA in May 2009. Since then, we have saved US$13.9 million. However, the main reason to offshore was the increasing work load. There was a point when the in-house lawyers were inundated with work and we thought that contracting an offshore service provider will help them reduce their workload.”

Corporations have more pressure to deliver quality at lesser prices leading to an increase in the amount of offshoring seen in this segment. Corporate counsels have been quite vocal about the high (and often inflated) hourly rates of law firms even for routine document review work. They have been telling their law firms to reduce their rates and in some cases suggesting the use of offshore service providers to keep the costs down. Despite this, some law firms are still hesitant about offshoring because they view it as a drastic change in their way of working.

There is no doubt that lawyers joining LPOs from international law firms and corporates offer the LPO a number of benefits – the most notable of which are domain knowledge, on-the-ground experience and a well-built network. At CPA, Leah will join the company’s legal outsourcing board and her role will primarily focus on strategy and development. Mindcrest, Pangea3, and SDD Global Solutions are some other LPOs that have hired senior US and UK lawyers. It is interesting to note that while LPOs might not be a favorite choice amongst the law graduates, LPOs are attracting lawyers from international law firms and corporations. The question however is – what does it take for a lawyer to don the manager’s hat? There is a shift in the way lawyers are thinking, planning and re-shaping their career. Amidst changing relationship between corporations and law firms, law as a profession is also re-shaping and lawyers are adapting to new (and challenging) roles.