Thursday, 29 Jul 2010
Legal outsourcer in UK first
10 February 2009
The seven-year deal agrees that Intergreon will provide a support service to the law firm from a Bristol-based service centre. OC has been heavily involved in the establishment of the service centre which, as part of the agreement, will incorporate OC’s chief operating officer Chris Bull, along with 75 OC business services staff.
While the onshore service centre is the first of its kind to be used by a British law firm, a number of other large firms have established similar centres within the past few years in locations outside of the UK. Intergreon provides support services based in Mumbai, Delhi and Manila for Clifford Chance and DLA Piper, while Lovells and Eversheds also subscribed to offshore service centres.
Clifford Chance made history in 2006 by announcing that it was transferring approximately 10% of its global business services to an offshore centre near Delhi. The firms argued that the move would help cut costs on unprofitable low-end work, which would in turn reduce client charge-out rates. It was estimated that this would make the firm an annual saving of approximately £9.5m.
The firms insist that outsourcing creates low-end work out of contracts which is so cost-ineffective it would not otherwise be done, and helps lower the cost for clients. However, there remain doubts among critics as to whether these cost cuts are passed on to customers in reality.
The outsourcing of OC work to the Intergreon-run service centre is also a decision based on finances. The firm recently concluded a one-year review which highlighted the economic benefit of concentrating the firm’s energy on its core legal services by outsourcing support services. Reduced costs are likely to be particularly attractive to clients in the current tough financial climate.
Intergreon is believed to be in discussion with a number of other top law firms which are interested in following OC and looking to benefit from the service centre.
