Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) for Litigation Support Companies. How Legal Process Outsourcing works. Offshoring the key to improve bottomline.

Crunch economic times, everyone cutting costs – That is 2009 for corporate world. Attribute it to Credit system goof, Global slowdown, or Bush’s policies (which Obama would be rueing ) it has all come down to greater stress on corporate sector to keep afloat. Litigation support companies have always been under pressure to provide speedy, cost effective and accurate services. This expectation has further risen with increased litigation due to global slowdown and in general.

What does this mean for Litigation Support companies?

The Economic slowdown has posed a challenge to the Litigation Support companies, to cut costs and be more efficient in order to survive. They are challenged to be cost competitive by improving their business processes. E – Discovery and Litigation Support coding are the biggest source of revenues for these companies. Outsourcing these services, is increasingly being accepted as a smarter option, in order to control costs.

What is E – Discovery in Legal Industry

E discovery refers to discovery in Litigation which deals with information in electronic format. When we talk about the services in E Discovery, it comprises of various processes under taken in order to provide electronic documents in desired format to assist in Litigation proceedings. Services may include Meta data Extraction, PDF conversion, bates numbering, PDF stamping, OCR, De Duplication, QA and Submitting back the data to clients in Industry standard formats like Ringtail, Summation, Concordance, etc.

Apart from this another service which is a major bread winner is Litigation support coding also known as Legal Coding. It involves inputting meta data about a document into a litigation support system. Data can be like date created, author, date emailed, etc. for a document.

How to cut on processing costs in a Litigation Support Company?

Litigation support is a man power intensive industry. Smart, knowledgeable work force makes the job fast and accurate. At the same time the challenge to cut on costs brings into play outsourced providers for Litigation support services. Armed with a pool of fluent English speaking and technically qualified computer graduates, countries like India and Philippines are aiming big to get a share of the global Legal outsourcing pie.

Business Model – Legal Process Outsourcing or as popularly know LPO

A parallel team of Litigation Support professionals in a cost competitive country like India, allows a major cut in costs to around just 50% of existing. The trend is moving towards a global work force rather than to employ costly personnel locally. Putting your money where it reaps dividend is a wise way to do it.

There are two Business models which are generally used for Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO):

1) Complete Offshoring - Where a litigation support company can completely offshore the processing needs to an E Discovery and Legal Coding vendor. Here the data is to be supplied to the vendor on hard disk formats or through internet. The vendor processes the data and delivers back the information to the Litigation Support company.

In Complete Offshoring, the Client Delivery manager, can directly interact with the Legal Process Offshoring Vendor’s (LPOV) Project Manager. The Client delivery manager has full control and can directly interact with LPOV team leaders. This allows discussion about the job requirements and job progress in an open environment. All job data to be processed is transferred to the LPOV network either on a hard drive or through internet. The LPOV Project Manager ensures that the jobs are carried out and proper QA is done on the jobs as per client instructions before final delivery of the job.

2) Partial Offshoring - Where all raw data resides on the network of Litigation Support Company. In partial outsourcing one is in full control of all data, processes, software system, etc. The jobs are processed onsite through a VNC/ VPN connection and the offshore staff runs the jobs 24X7. An easy, seamless extension of existing setup which provide phenomenally reduced costs.

In Partial offshoring, in addition to the client side team there is a parallel Offshore LPOV team, to work on the Jobs. Client delivery Manager has some staff locally to manage and get the jobs processed. At the same time a much larger parallel team of Legal Support professionals is employed with the LPOV to work on Client’s jobs. This provides cost effective source of knowledgeable staff which actually work as an extension of Client’s team making client more competitive and thus create more profits and jobs locally as well.

The Client Delivery manager, can directly interact with the Legal Process Offshoring Vendor (LPOV) Project Manager. The Client delivery manager and Client Team leaders have full control on their local teams and also on the LPOV team. There is open and free flow of communication between the two teams at managerial and team lead levels. All job data to be processed is held locally on the Client network. The LPOV team logs in through a VPN & VNC connection and actually runs Document Management Software on client site remotely. The LPOV Project Manager ensures that the jobs are carried out and proper QA is done on the jobs as per client instructions before final delivery of the job.

Both models have been effective in providing a huge cost advantage to the Litigation support company outsourcing its LPO needs. It depends upon company’s policy and business environment that they work in, which decides which Business Model they choose. But for sure, the benefits are immense in terms of reduced costs and better profitability!

Rajan BatishEmail: rajan@batishtechnologies.com
Phone: +91 9872788609
Skype : rajanbatishWeb: http://www.batishtechnologies.com/

Rajan is Managing Partner at Batish Technologies and a Litigation Support Consultant.

Content Management Systems (Bespoke and Off-the-Shelf)

Content Management Systems (CMS) have cut down the way content is published on websites and intranets these days. A CMS is an easy-to-use tool that involves minimum technical skills. Any lay-man can simply create text and multimedia rich web pages this system. Though, you are not just restricted to designing and publishing web pages. It also permits maintenance of documents and other content.

A CMS can also be used for precise reason like document management, knowledge management, website content management, and so on. There are many systems existing that are package with more or less parallel features and are equally effective. Most of these can be modified for a precise type of working environment and are generally referred to as bespoke content management systems.

Generally they can be classified as enterprise level CMS and Open Source CMS. Enterprise content management systems have superior elements like workflow management and security features. Open source CMS are free-to-use tools with all the necessary basic functionalities. A content management system also relies on the type of platform used like the programming language (ASP, PHP, JAVA, and so on) and the supported databases (MySQL, Oracle, and so on).

Much of CMS triumph can be recognized to its usability feature. The easiness of use does not necessarily mean how easy it is for the author to get the content published on the web page. The usability factor of a content management system also takes into account the following:

• Easy to design layout, publish the content, and fast deployment.
• The easiness with which the CMS can be learned.
• The way in which the errors are reported and controlled.
• Portability between versions and scalability on various platforms.

Separately from easy functionalities, a content management system should preferably include the following features:

• Customizable templates that can voluntarily applied to content.
• Work flow management and document management.
• Advanced plug-ins and upgrades that meet the terms to latest web standards.

A bespoke CMS permits the users to renovate the content on any page or portion of the website. Bespoke content management systems are most excellent used when there are individual requirements like multi-lingual support, automatic link check, access rights depending on the roles, convoluted database systems, and so on. It is positive to have requirements and implementation objectives without a doubt defined before selecting and conclude a content management system.

Tips on Design and Development of Website

If you are searching for a means to generate more sales and customers for your products or services, a website is maybe all you need. A website set up your existence in the virtual world. Think of it as your virtual address, where anybody, wherever their location around the world can visit. You will have a larger share of the market by just having an inter-active website.

So what do you want to make out in having a website that will work for you? Whether you are planning to do it by hand or outsource it to professional website developer, there are things that you must know in order for your ideas to come alive.

If you are not tech sense and you don't know whatever thing about website design and development, this is the time for you to do so. You don't need to become an professional and be clever to design and develop it from scratch. Learn the latest trends and technologies so you can better state yourself when having an expert do it for you. You'll be able to express your ideas evidently and effectively if you can speak the language and terminologies.

While you can opt to do your website to save you money, you require to make sure that the website you will make will have the expert look and feel to it. You do not want to stand for company or products/services to look slack with a poorly designed website. If you have the required skills and make out how then by all means go ahead and do it. If on the other hand you have nervousness whether you can really pull it - let the professionals handle it for you.

Programming Languages:

Be familiar with what programming language technology can bring for you and for your website. Visit websites that are alike to your line of business and see what works well for them. Check their functionality and their usability to get a first hand experience. Look at all the minute details that make this website function the way it does. Does it propose usability even to non tech sense people? Will you be able to edit and make additions to the code, or will it be too complex? If you have set up the language you are satisfied with, you can then plan and conceptualize your website based on that technology.

Prefer a programming language that you can direct after the designer has made the turn over. Or you can constantly choose to retain the services of a professional company to do the monthly maintenance.

Search Engine Optimization:

SEO will help out you reach the top of the search engines. Add in SEO with your website design complete and delivers maximum potential for you. This technology will take traffic and help you penetrate your targeted market more efficiently.

Web Development Structure:

Website Development Structure is significant if you wish your website to have longer life and usability. This should be thrashing out before the implementation to assurance that later stages and upgrades are included in the design, simply put; you must have room for development. Your website structure should not be partial to the here and now, but must be engineered in such a way that you can add additional features in the future.

Google Adsense

It has been rightly said:” Being determines consciousness” meaning, in part that the way you make your living influences how you think about things. Google makes its living from advertising & the Google Adsense program in particular earns up its needs by placing ads in web content. These ads are looked after by Google. The Google Adsense program allows Web publishers to earn more revenue from their websites.

Adsense delivers ads targeted to content pages,& when Google web search is added to the site Adsense also delivers targeted ads to search results pages. It allows your business to make money when visitors click on ads associated with your business. To enhance the lists of visitors, Google provides premium service for Adsense to the website owners .This is because high volume site deserves more service. According to Google, if your site receives more than 5 million search queries then you are eligible for AdSense premium service. For this the website owner has to submit the form on services.Google.com. The benefits of the Adsense premium service includes:

Access to technical & sales support

A greater variety of customizable ad formats than standard AdSense offers

Assistance with ad optimization

Sophisticated filtering options

More ways to make money from ads than standard offers.

So, Adsense has emerged as the most demanding method of displaying the advertising on a website. Instead of spending money to hire an additional sales representative to sell ad banners, people are now opting for Google Adsense as virtual sales tool for their website promotion & increasing their business.

Google Adsense is free to join. It doesn’t charge you any fee for signing in to the Google Adsense. It will charge only for the clicks .But makes sure that you don’t cheat the Google Adsense. Many people often clicking their own ads over & over again. Google uses various tools to find out the suspicious patterns. It can earn you loads of profits if you use Google Adsense creatively as it provides various options like color & layout schemes to manipulate your content.

How to Build A Search-Engine Friendly Website

Developing a website begins with the blueprint of the site. This blueprint is a clearly defined website design with a professional outlook and a high-quality link arrangement. When crafting a model you must keep the marketing aspects in mind.

The main aim of developing a website & then submitting it on the various search engines is to attract the audience to your site & enhance the business prospects. But it requires certain design issues that need to be taken care of.

Here are some design tips to make your website search engine friendly:

• Avoid symbols in your URLs because many search engines don’t recognize them.

• The search engines draw much of their information from the home page of your site. This is usually the first page a viewer see when he/she visits your site. Don’t design the home page that contains heavy graphics. Besides taking longer to download graphic intensive home page don’t provide enough text for a search engine to use. So, make sure that you have text on your home page.
  

• Place a summary paragraph at the top of each page describing page contents. Include keywords that browsers are likely to use in a search for your site & limit the summary to around 250 words or less.
  

• Keep in mind that each search engine has different method of deciding what criteria are best for their engines. Therefore, it is a good idea to learn as much as you can about specific search engines so that you can target them.
  

• Refrain from registering your site with a search engine more than once. If you do this, some search engines can lower your ranking in any search results list.
  

• Place descriptive keywords between the TITLE HTML tags on each page of your website.
  

• Be creative when selecting keywords. Keep in mind not everyone thinks of the same words as you do, especially when you consider international audience. For this reason try to include wide range of keywords relevant to your site.
  

• Use the ALT tag to describe your graphics. Since search engines cannot read graphics, this provides a text description the search engine can use.

These tips if employed wisely can or surely will improve search engine ranking.

OFF Page Optimization

Search engine optimization is a process of designing your website then submitting it correctly to the search engines for the purpose of getting as much traffic as possible from them. It’s very easy to submit the website on search engines; you can either go for automatic submission or the manual one. But the main question arises how to gain maximum traffic?

The answer to this question is that your website constantly requires on page optimization or off page optimization to attract more traffic. Now, let’s discuss what off page optimization is & what methods of off page optimization are.

Off page optimization is an approach for search engine optimization which is made off the pages of a website to capitalize on its performance in the search engines for focused keywords linked to the page content.

Off page optimization involves a lot of things to advance your search engine page ranking and escalate targeted guest traffic to your web site. Off-page aspects must be thoroughly measured and applied to attain a top search engine ranking. These aspects are mainly attached to the site's linking technique which is generally known as link popularity. Link popularity is used by the search engines in locating & ranking site. Improving link popularity by persuading other sites to link to yours increases a site in search engine rankings & is therefore a critical aspect of page optimization

There are several other aspects that are measured by important search engines in assessing the off-page optimization of the web site. These factors include:

• The name of the websites linked to your sites. It's important that the web sites connected to your web site is related to the content on your site.
• The quantity of appropriate sites which link to your site is an important advantage for your site.
• The web site’s Google page rank which links to your site. It is the most important factor for the reason that a high page rank related site linking to your site is to a great extent better than a low page rank site. A site's polling potential rises as the page rank of the site rises.
• The information about the anchor text of every link to your site. Anchor text specifies the region of relevance the linking site places on your site. So, it should contain only your main keywords.

• The name page title of the web page which is linking to your site. It is always advantageous if the title page of the linking web page is in accordance to your site and includes one of your keywords in its title.

• The number of links on the web page linking to your site. The page rank is very much affected by the inbound and outbound links.

• The importance of the web site that is connecting to your site in its field of relevance? You will get more hits for if the site linking to you is treated a powerful in its field.

Pay Per Click Company : Guidelines to manage your PPC campaign

Pay per Click (PPC) is the most effectual method to gain the highest profits. It assists to likely enhance traffic of your website. Pay per click provides various benefits. You give money only when your ad is clicked.The competence can be experienced with small funds.

An efficient pay per click promotion may be able to make easier for you to decrease the cost per click. When contemplating for PPC ad promotion you must concentrate on a few main issues that are connected to it and can influence your weight age. A stylish pay per click promotion can enhance your ad ranking. It is very important to have ample information about PPC campaigning. Prior to outsourcing your assistance it is extremely crucial that you should evaluate your efficiency. Some of the points are discussed below in this context:

Being a Pay-per-click company, you must be completely conscious of the various issues which help in determining the competence of your organization prior to outsourcing your PPC promotion management service. These days, there are several companies which are providing unique web promotion services.

Time and Resource: An important point to consider by every Pay Per Click Company is the time and resources. Standard website promotion campaigns need many days to be done perfectly. It also includes many other issues like keyword research and competitive study for PPC promotion management. As these methods consume a lot of time, you have to devote your time and resource effectively to get high website rankings.

Different Marketing Techniques: Internet marketing techniques can help you lot in attracting lot of traffic to your site & it’s less pricey way of promotion. When you are opting this option makes sure that you have the complete information about when & where to place your links so that they can earn your website high popularity. You should always try to follow good marketing techniques to earn more profits.

Communication Skills: Communication skill has an important role to play to help you to succeed in this business. It helps you to promote your website in the global Market as well if you have high link popularity.