Disadvantages of the LPO Model

There are a certain number of disadvantages and risks when using LPO's, and they include:

-Difficulty in communicating expectations and requirements. With most LPO's located half way around the world, time zones (9.5 to 13 hours), differences in semantics, and cultural differences make it hard to communicate requirements and obtain feedback

-Cultural differences are huge. Cultural differences between the US and UK on one hand and the Philippines and India on the other make it hard to conduct business. The English language being spoken in the Philippines and especially in India is different from what is spoken in North American and the UK. Words can have different meanings, sentence structure tends to be different (Indians tend to speak in the passive voice), different styles of communicating (Indians tend to avoid confrontation, and will agree verbally when in reality, they disagree). Indians often agree to deadlines that they know they are unable to meet, only because they are reluctant to say "no".

-Differences in values and ethics. While UK and US employees tend to be loyal to their companies, and follow a certain code of ethics thought to be universal by the naive Western world, Asians have no such loyalty, and look for opportunities to take advantage of their employers' trust. They often see the employer as a foe rather than a benefactor. Examples of this include violations of intellectual property, leakage of corporate information, and theft of company property.

-Quality. While LPO's take various measures to produce a deliverable of acceptable quality, it is very often the case that the quality of their deliverable is significantly inferior to what is produced by UK and US-trained lawyers. LPO's are then forced to add multiple layers of quality assurance and inflate the number of team members working on projects, leading to a higher total cost of their work product.

-Legal protection. The protection of intellectual property and corporate information remains an afterthought for most law enforcement agencies in emerging countries. And while there are some recent laws in India and other countries that are supposed to remedy this, those laws are seldom enforced.

The LPO model can be enticing, but buyer beware! Companies planning to utilize legal workers overseas must perform a careful diligence in order to protect their asset, reputation and get the value they expect.