Changing Roles and Increasing Importance of Legal Support Staff

Paralegals, legal assistants and legal secretaries are collectively known as legal support staff in law firms. They work very closely despite of having different roles and job responsibilities. Majority of the tasks performed by paralegals and legal assistants are billed to the clients by law firms whereas legal secretaries perform secretarial tasks which are not billable. In past, technological advancement has greatly affected the roles of legal support staff in law firms. Work efficiencies are improved which made law firms reduce the support staff. They shifted their focus to improve the attorney-paralegal/assistant ratio. Remaining support staff who used to assist one or two attorneys before, started assisting more and secretaries were involved in billable tasks thus improving the overall attorney-support staff ratio of the firm.

These support staff work directly with attorneys on a given case. They know ins and outs of the case. Attorneys look up to them for any case related update before client meetings. Still they perform number of tasks which can be managed by or outsourced to a specialized legal support company. Many of the law firms are working with companies like Draft n Craft which provide variety of legal support services to law firms. Now support staff do not get involved in researching and finding cases on Westlaw andLexisNexis, preparing case summaries, indexing thousands of discovery documents, preparing spreadsheets, summarizing depositions and drafting of various legal documents. They just coordinate with the legal team of Draft n Craft and supervise their work. This arrangement allows them to free up their time and focus on more substantive tasks. At the same time law firms enjoy a great deal of cost savings and improved overall efficiency that bring more satisfaction for clients.

Established in 2008, Draft n Craft has been in existence for more than 8 years and earned a reputation of being a quality provider of legal support to US law firms, In house legal departments and other legal vendors. Not only this, but the company keeps on spreading awareness about legal outsourcing and its benefits by organizing legal conferences and seminars at regular intervals.

For more information about services, turnaround time and rates, visit www.draftncraft.com or send an email at connect@draftncraft.com

How Important Is Legal Research in Your Practice?

Legal Research can be a complex and time-consuming process for attorneys and paralegals. A small negligence can cause major damage to the firm as the outcome of the research leads to legal decision making. The fundamental step in research is to find the appropriate cases governing the issues in question but the ability to analyze what is found and reach a conclusion based on it is also equally important. Usually legal research is known to take much time and effort, and access to online legal research databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw can be costly. Consequently, law firms and other attorneys turn to companies like Draft n Craft to outsource their legal research needs.

Usually legal research is known to take much time and effort, and access to online legal research databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw can be costly. Consequently, law firms and other attorneys turn to companies like Draft n Craft to outsource their legal research needs.

We, at Draft n Craft have a team of immensely talented attorneys who are trained on the U.S. judicial systems. Our dynamic team of attorneys and paralegals come from various backgrounds and share their rich experience in carrying effective legal research for our clients. They efficiently sift through data using the different research tools available with us likeLexisNexis. Following are some of the key highlights of our legal research service.

• Proficient, precise, and comprehensive legal research for each of the different U.S. jurisdictions
• IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion) Memo with legal analysis of issues presented by the client’s set of facts
• Annotated summary of Shephardized cases relevant to the client’s issue(s)
• Conclusion advocating the clients’ legal position
• Available instantly on demand, predictable and fully reviewable
• Quick turnaround time

If you are interested in using our legal research service or have any query, please send us an email at connect@draftncraft.com . One of our experts will get back to you to understand and discuss your requirements.

IS LEGAL PROCESS OFFSHORING AN EXPORT OF SERVICES?

The cross borders issues generally prevail in the development of countries. This reminds me of an elderly man’s saying “The man on latch of a door control the flow of air from outside to inside & vice versa”. The import & export of goods is decided by different factors like the availability, demand and need. Country intends to export the goods looking into the fact of the ability to produce those goods & get them consumed in other International markets. The motive of export is to earn foreign exchange.

In case of offshoring the services cross border the organisation do not directly earn. However, the cost of those services in-house looks expensive which encourages its outsourcing. Offshoring can be a symbolic way of export when we consider the savings as also forming part of earning. In this services are off-shored to get the same being delivered at low prices. I am not trying to show the offshoring of jobs but the offshoring of services which technocrat offers to one’s clients.

A very simple hypothetical situation can be used to understand the balance of exchequer between two countries. Country ‘A’ exports various high profile and expensive goods to country ‘B’. In terms country ‘A’ needs to settle the balance of payment with country ‘B’ but the same always remain tilted towards country ‘A’. Country ‘B’ has got an excellent pool of people who can deliver good number of services to country ‘A’. This can be the best way to make up balance of payments as far as country ‘A’ & country ‘B’ are concern. Logically the export of goods from country ‘A’ to country ‘B’ can be matched up by export of services by country ‘B’ to country ‘A’.

Is it the way to conclude that export of services is also near to export of goods.

Legal Research Outsourcing: Our Means and Your Ends

Among the series of Webinars being hosted by Draft n Craft, Rajni Minhas, Assistant Legal Head, held a Webinar on Legal Research Outsourcing: Our means and your ends.

The purpose of this webinar was to question the paradigm shift in the needs, means and results of Legal Research in wake of integrating world. After holistically looking at the intricacies of the service, the webinar aims to understand and analyse the regulatory and ethical aspects of the same.

Topics Covered in the web cast were:

o Legal Research outsourcing Needs
o Multi jurisdiction research
o Legal Research tools & deliverables
o Memo Writing
o Ethical and Regulatory aspects of Legal Research outsourcing.
o Issues of Confidentiality and Quality
o Process Flow
o Pricing the Legal Research