I seem to be writing about law a lot lately
September 30th, 2007
Here’s the piece for the ABA Journal about Indian lawyers who do work for American companies and law firms:
Manhattan Work At Mumbai Prices
For this piece I hung out with Mumbai-based Indian lawyers who do work for American companies to find out about them, their days, their lives, their work, their hopes and dreams, and so on. It turns out Indian lawyers doing work for American companies are brainy people who sit in front of computers for a lot of the day, just like lawyers all over the world (best as I can tell) - only they’re involved in this great big new industry that they are finding really exciting to be a part of. It’s changing the practice of law in India, and changing the career path of Indian lawyers - I think it remains to be seen what effect this will have on American lawyers and the American legal industry.
(Just as a side note - imagine you’re a lawyer and you’ve got some silly American writer hanging out in your office all day, watching you while you work and asking you lots of personal questions about why you’re doing what you’re doing and what you’re eating and what you always hoped your life would be like, when really you just want to check your email. I can’t thank the lawyers of Pangea3 enough for their patience in the face of such a thing.)
For more on the outsourcing culture in India, I point you to Rahul Jindal’s excellent blog.