7.12

Governments, regulators, courts and consumer groups, alike, have advocated for greater ‘access to justice’ and more cost efficient legal services. For example, some legal regulators in Canada, at least, have taken steps to broaden the roles of paralegals and articled students, on the implied assumption that their services will be more affordable, in addition, possibly, to expanding legal services in less-populated areas.

Enter the offshore or extra-jurisdictional legal process outsourcing entities - those that do not use British Columbia-regulated legal service providers. In some form or another, they promise significantly reduced legal costs for matters like research, litigation coding, contract and document review, mergers and acquisition due diligence, commoditized contract preparation, contract and compliance management. Their clients are law firms that are seeking more cost effective means of legal service delivery or large consumers of these services, the law firms’ clients, themselves. This is either facilitated by their traditional, outside counsel - or not.