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Law firms are outsourcing some of the work on their cases to other countries, joining a growing national trend of trying to cut costs by using a labor force paid at a lower rate than American workers.
"Clients are entitled to get these things done in an efficient way," said Jim Shea, managing partner of Venable LLP, one of the Washington area's biggest law firms.
His firm has used Indian companies to draft patent applications for Venable clients. The foreign companies also have done "coding" of legal documents in which they index and annotate them before transferring them to computer software.
The Indian firms can do legal work for about $40 an hour, compared with $120 an hour charged by many U.S. law firms.
Mr. Shea said the quality of work does not suffer from using foreign workers because it is reviewed by U.S. lawyers.
"We apply the legal experience and expertise we're required to apply," he said.
Other Washington law firms that occasionally outsource legal work include Arnold & Porter LLP and Howrey LLP.
Although most of Howrey's outsourcing is done in the United States, some of its contractors have partnerships with companies overseas.
The work is limited to coding and electronic data processing, said Brian Conlon, Howrey's chief information officer.
About 695,000 lawyers and 200,000 paralegals were employed in the United States in 2002, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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