The Estrin Report

40 New Women Paralegals in Israel Work on $8 Billion U.S. Deal: Similarities to U.S. Paralegals Uncanny

An article today in The Jerusalem Post revealed that 40 new Israeli women paralegals worked long hours on an $8 billion U.S. real estate deal.  The training sponsored by the Development Center for the Employment of Haredim, (an Orthodox sect of Judiasm that bypasses modern secular beliefs), a branch of the ministry, and the Joint-Israel, is a result of an increased effort by the Israeli government to help secure a more stable financial reality for the country's haredi citizens, many of whom never before held down a steady job.

One company, Citybook Services, Ltd., set up more than four years ago in Modi'in Illit by New Jersey businessman Joe Rosenbaum, has grown from its initial team of eight people into a company that now employs approximately 200 haredi employees, the vast majority of whom are English-speaking women, in Modi'in Illit, Beitar Illit and Jerusalem. 

There is four month paralegal training program, after which the newly trained professionals are equipped to either handle the back-office work for Rosenbaum's lease abstraction branch, LeaseProbe LLC, or its title insurance office, Madison Title Agency, LLC.

Recently, Madison Title Agency and its team of more than 40 Citybook paralegals prepared title policies for one of the largest non-casino hotel deals in US history, an $8 billion real estate transaction involving the Extended Stay hotel chain. The transaction, involving some 700 properties in 44 states, presented numerous challenges in terms of the number of properties involved, the geographic scope, the tight deadlines as well as the need to maintain the company's other businesses.

Citybook, originally established mainly for philanthropic purposes to strengthen the poor economic situation in Modi'in Illit as a company that handled the back-office work of Rosenbaum's Madison Commercial Real Estate Services in the States, has now grown into a successful and internationally recognized company that performs numerous high-end outsourcing services for a number of US-based businesses.

The paralegals worked 12-14 hours a day on the assignment finishing before the due date. Similarities to U.S. paralegals are eerie:  Four month program; work long hours on document intensive assignment; and all are women.  In a recent survey conducted by Estrin LegalEd for in-house paralegals, the respondents were 93% female. 

Besides India, are paralegal jobs also going to Israel?  Anyone seeing a new trend?   

Outsourcing to India? Lawyers from India don't like it anymore than lawyers from the U.S.

Apparently, not all lawyers in India are crazy about the outsourcing trend heating up in India and other lower-cost developing nations.  According to Merinews, written from India, Legal Process Outsourcing is the latest and hottest trend. Big corporations are reaping the benefits. New job opportunities are being created. LPOs (Legal Process Outsourcing) seem to have a bright future in India in the coming years.

Major corporations benefit from having work done at a quarter of the price, while the developing countries benefit from the huge influx of income and job creation. The latest industry to join the outsourcing rat race is the legal sector. Legal outsourcing has already created 12,000 job opportunities in India alone and this figure is expected to rise to as many as 79,000 by 2015.

But the response from young Indian lawyers seems to be less than positive. Ramneek Sidhu, from Delhi Law School says, “After investing three years in law school, I don’t want to be caught dead working as a clerk in an LPO.”

Nishita too agrees with this view and further adds, “A lawyer in an LPO is definitely earning good money but at the same time is not justifying his/her profession. There is no direct litigation involved which is the essence of being a lawyer.”

Brij, a young attorney working with an LPO feels quite differently to both Ramneek and Nishita. He believes that he is making a sound progress in his career graph by working with an LPO. He says, “Many lawyers nowadays, whether in India, the US or the UK rarely see the inside of a court room. Working within an LPO and not a law firm allows me to keep in sync with the latest developments in US law. The legal thought process that any young attorney must develop over time comes from studying, reading and writing legal briefs and memoranda. I hope that I demonstrate my passion and emotion for law in the arguments I raise in the legal motions and documents I prepare. "

Mark Ross from the outsourcing group Lawcribe, is quoted as saying, "we are only in the nascent stages of this exciting and emerging industry. He says, “In the course of the next two to three years, a vast number of qualified Indian attorneys will be working within the industry. I believe the Indian government and the Bar Association will be left with no alternative other than to formally open up the market to foreign law firms and allow Indian attorneys to practice US and UK law from within India’s borders."

From attorneys to paralegals, outsourcing is weathering opposition, controversy and still some success.  Lawscribe, a recent sponsor to one of our Paralegal SuperConferences addressed the audience on how clients and law firms will save money by outsourcing attorney and paralegal functions to India.  Unfortunately, the message the audience chose to hear was "The client will save money and the firm will make more.  Unfortunately, you will lose your job."  Needless to say, Lawscribe was not a big hit on the Paralegal circuit.

While the company was upset by the response of the audience, they say someone should have told them the audience would not be receptive.  My response was that they should have done their homework and chose another way to deliver the message.  I offered to help but they refused.  My opinion was that the approach they should have taken was to teach attorneys and paralegals how to outsource and at the same time bring up their own position another rung on the ladder by absorbing more sophisticated and diversified assignments.  It's the only way that outsourcing will work.

This is not the first time outsourcing has reared its head.  Years ago, litigation support companies such as Quorum Litigation, outsourced coding to the Philippines.  This is not a new concept.  Fear ran amok attorneys and paralegals then.  But what happened was, clients saved money, firms made more and paralegals and attorneys dropped the lowest common tasks to the lowest competent level.  Rarely now, do you see paralegals coding.

It will be interesting to see if outsourcing to India takes off as predicted or flak from both countries prevents it from succeeding.

Paralegals Leading the Boomer Pack?

The Maine Biz Daily reported today that Maine will soon be among those states with a shortage in workers as seemingly an overwhelming number of its residents are running with the Baby Boomer pack.

Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, director of the Center on Aging and Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College cites data from a U.S. Census Bureau study that will be released later this year that found a number of Maine industries with significant portions of their workforce middle aged or older. According to Pitt-Catsouphes, 64% of Maine's legal workers, including its lawyers and legal assistants, are aged 45 or older.  This will undoubtedly cause a shortage of lawyers and paralegals in Maine's workforce.

The paralegal field has always been an attractive field for career transitioners.  A few years ago, UCLA reported that students in its paralegal program averaged 36 years of age.  Surveys from the Los Angeles Paralegal Association indicated that the average age of paralegal in Los Angeles was about 38.

A recent survey of corporate law department paralegals from Estrin LegalEd, about to be published in a few short weeks, shows that the majority of in-house paralegals are 93% women from the age of 45-50.  While people are working longer and opting for longer careers, Pitt-Catsouphes claims that the reason is that people want to stay in the workforce longer is to stay in touch with the business community for as long as they can.

Who is she kidding?  Has she priced the cost of a condo in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco or Chicago recently?  Certainly people are staying in the workforce longer simply because they lack enough funds to retire.  If the figures are correct, that paralegals are 36-38 when they enter this field and are between 45-50 years of age now, and they may have taken a pay cut in order to enter a new field, retirement doesn't seem like a decision for too many folks in the near future. With starting salaries at around $36k, who saved enough money to retire?

Let's face facts.  Until paralegals-who command an hourly billable rate of anywhere from $125.00 to $300.00+ per hour-are structured in more of a pay-for-performance-compensation program and less on strictly number of years in the field, huge numbers of retiring paralegals in the near future may be just a fantasy.  Any thoughts?