We have been hearing for quite some time that Wipro, India's third largest software exporter is planning to get into legal process outsourcing. Now it is confirmed that as part of its KPO services it would start offering legal process outsourcing (LPO) services for clients across US and Europe. According to Times of India it would be headed by former banker and Wipro BPO senior VP Ramit Sethi.
Wipro will offer services such as patents and contract management. And for the 
time being won't go all out to lure clients from the fields of paralegal services and litigation support. It presently employs 80 staff and set to appoint more in future.
Wipro unlike its arch rival Infosys does not want to go all out promoting its LPO services. The service is more like an extension to its KPO service. Mr. Sethi is not heading the LPO division, in fact he is in charge of the KPO division. For legal domain skills Madhu Khatri will do the consultation.
Infosys on the other hand is more proactive and has appointed Karlyn Stanley, a former partner in a private equity and an attorney with around 25 years. It has also appointed an offshore director who will be based out of India. Infosys also won't mind getting contracts from hardcore law firms, which is not the case with Wipro.
Mr Sethi while speaking to Times of India said,
The objective is to provide end-to-end services catering to the same global customer. LPO becomes a logical extension given the cost pressures that clients are facing now. We find that there is a very healthy demand for the services.
When we go to market, our first call will be intellectual property-related and contract management work that caters that is outsourced by corporates as opposed to niche legal work for law firms. The LPO currently employs about 80 people and is not very large but from the perspective of the LPO industry where most firms are just starting off, it is quite large.
In the LPO world, there are two kinds of work — corporate outsourcing and law firms outsourcing. We are looking at the former but that doesn't mean we won't take up opportunistic jobs. We have the capability
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