Two US companies to set up outsourcing unit in Lanka

by Shirajiv Sirimane

Two leading US companies are looking at the possibility of outsourcing part of their legal work to Sri Lanka. Officials from the Contract Counsel, a US based human resource company was in Colombo last week. According to the President Contract Counsel, David J. Galbenski they are already outsourcing some of their work to India. "We have over 15,000 legal professionals as our clients and their ideal choice is India and we have contacted some legal firms, who are ready to work with Sri Lankans," he said..

Galbenski also met officials of the Corporate Chambers of Sri Lanka to discuss the possibility to tie up with some junior lawyers who have US law degrees in Sri Lanka.

NuMatrix of USA, a Global Technology Management Services company which has its'office in Sri Lanka has been appointed to co-ordinate the project. Sri Lanka has a higher literacy rate and the turnover time for an outsourcing assignment is quicker. This is a major advantage Sri Lanka holds over India. The biggest advantage is the time difference where the US legal firm forwards an assignment to Sri Lanka at the closing time of their operations. Sri Lanka can prepare this assignment and forward it back during the day and the US firm can pick it up as soon as they open their office," he said.

He said that even a very junior lawyer in USA charges a high fee for a very small assignment. "By outsourcing the US firms could cut their cost by nearly 60 percent," he said.

Galbenski said that they are now looking at sending a team of senior lawyers to Sri Lanka to train Sri Lankan lawyers on the US legal system.

According to an official of the Corporate Chambers of Sri Lanka, there are many similarities in the Sri Lankan law and US. "Lankan lawyers would be able to grasp the changes in the US law in one month," he said.

He said that with this project many young members of the bar would benefit and large amount of foreign exchange would flow into the country.

The young lawyers would earn 80 percent of what they are earning now and this outsoucing project would benefit both countries," he said. NuMatrix is a Global Technology Management Services Co Partners Rukmal Fernando and Sesha Ramenaden based in USA said that they saw a new business opportunity in the legal profession and decided to peruse it. "We are now hoping to establish a unit in Sri Lanka to handle legal work outsourced by US legal law firms," Ramenaden said.

"We would be the go between as we are a company providing business-driven information and communications, solutions and services to help clients manage the life cycle of their distributed technology locally, nationally and worldwide," he said.

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