Ex-NSN legal chief joins ‘disruptive paradigm’ of LPO UnitedLex

Former Nokia Siemens Networks legal head Joginder Yadav joined legal process outsourcing company (LPO) UnitedLex as senior vice-president in its contract solutions business on Monday. Yadav shifted gears into the LPO industry after more than sixteen years of an in-house legal career, including a brief law firm stint at Kochhar & Co.

Yadav said: “I believe the LPO sector represents a different way of doing things, by which I mean to say that it is both innovative and disruptive to the way we generally understand legal services and solutions being delivered in the past.

“I made the switch to be part of this new paradigm, and I hope I can add some value to the way in-house lawyers perceive the work that LPOs do.”

Most lawyers were averse to using the services of LPOs to address their clients’ customised needs but, he explained, for standardised client needs LPOs were more effective. Most in-house lawyers didn’t understand this because they lacked exposure to the LPO model of work, and also because law firms are not used to a “systematic and process-oriented” way of working.

“I could not let go of the chance to do something really meaningful and satisfying,” he added.

Yadav began his legal career in 1996 as legal head at the non-banking finance company VLS Finance for more than a year and moved to Kochhar & Co in Delhi, and then Japanese intellectual property (IPR) law firm TMI Associates in Tokyo.

In December 2000 he returned in-house as the South Asia regional counsel for Sun Microsystems, and moved to IBM as senior attorney in July 2004. In May 2007 Yadav began at Cisco Systems as senior corporate counsel and finally moved to his last-held in-house role, at Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) in January 2009 as head of the global professional services legal function.

At NSN, Yadav said, he worked with LPOs as part of his most recent assignment in the contracting and IPR space and it was challenging to understand their model, especially when many LPOs “showed a lack of focus”, claiming to help his company with absolutely anything that it wanted.

There was also often a failure on the LPOs’ part to understand his company’s business model and “pain points”, and therefore the absence of a clear plan, he claimed.

At UnitedLex Yadav will focus on providing direction to the team for designing and implementing effective contracting solutions through new services, better processes and more efficient technology, for both existing and new clients, as well as increasing people and delivery capabilities, according to a press release from the company.

UnitedLex’s global chief operating officer Pavan Vaish described Yadav’s appointment as “a strong addition to the UnitedLex leadership team”.

UnitedLex reported a sixteen-fold turnover growth since 2008, grossing Rs 238 crore in 2011. The LPO employs 550 lawyers globally, more than two-thirds of whom are in India.

Comments

Machiavelli 14 Sept 2012, 05:18

+0 -0

Good way to make money I guess but I can't imagine dealing with the tedium of working in an outsourcing business dealing with the bottom end of legal practice as opposed to practicing law properly. Whether litigation or top end transactional work, the intellectual content of the work is bound to be more satisfying. To each their own I guess.

ABC 14 Sept 2012, 06:50

+2 -0

It was only litigation earlier, that was supposed to be 'practicing law properly'. Then came law firms with corporate law practice, and along brought the debate ... is this 'practicing law properly'? When this debate is more or less settled, we have LPOs now and the debate continues! In a profession overcrowded with thousands of law graduates every year (and hundreds of graduates from 'best law schools'), I think the focus should now be on how a law graduate can best utilize his degree.

Kishen 14 Sept 2012, 23:35

Poorly written reply. Law firms didnt just 'come around' to corporate law practice recently. Solicitors and solicitor firms have been doing documentation for centuries. Its just that the economy has done well. Hence more business, hence more (high stakes) documentation, hence more firms practising corporate law.

I too believe that theres very little scope for using a brain in LPOs. You really dont need a law degree to work in one. But to each his own I guess.

BTW, is this dude Joginder Yadav from Law School? Kian, please find out.

ABC 15 Sept 2012, 02:45

Thanks Kishen. I think being lawyers, sometimes we tend to overdo reading between the lines. For example, there is no reference in my earlier post on the time period when law firms with corporate practice became a reality of legal practice. So lets not get onto the discussion whether it is a 'recent' or 'ancient' event. My point is the scope of legal service has expanded over time in response to demand. There are law firms that engage its associates in doing long term contract management for its clients, and although it might sound good on the surface that those associates are working in a 'law firm', if one cares to look deeper, their work is not very different from an LPO.

As per the requirement of a 'law degree', well, you may be surprised at the amount of knowledge a seasoned 'munshiji' in any of the chambers of a senior counsel may have compared to that of a practicing lawyer with fewer years of experience. A law degree is at best an entry ticket. Whether it is needed, is more of a question of regulatory gate-keeping than quality of work. Every work requires some use of brain, and if one commences a comparison of all components of the legal profession (the 'pure' one that is) in terms of intellectual fulfillment, the result will most likely be that a large section of lawyers are doing monotonous repetitive work, and only occasionally come across anything intellectually satisfying. In other words, they only have the second best option. I wonder if we should start looking down upon those 'DUDE's as well, only to reassure ourselves.

Dahi Balla and Asociates 22 Sept 2012, 17:11

Its the same debate as Test Matches-ODI-T20. Needless to say that a test cricketer draws more respect than a T20 player. Same analogy.

Anonymous 23 Sept 2012, 10:57

Agreed, except here the players themselves and not the viewers, are debating.

Dahi Balla and Asociates 24 Sept 2012, 09:04

in that case, im sure every t20 player wants to play test. not always true the other way round

Machiavelli 14 Sept 2012, 12:50

+0 -1

To ABC: Fair enough on the job or utilising degree point but by practicing law properly, I mean being a lawyer. An important part of being a lawyer is to take a client - in a court case or on a deal, from start to finish, achieving a final result and taking full responsibility for your work. The intellectual content of that, I would argue, is greater than what you would do in an LPO. If you are happy with less than that, who am I to question that but the pleasure of being a lawyer is in doing what I have just described. And if you get your law degree to work in an LPO, fine, but if you take this option because you have to settle for it, that's a bit sad.

On the other hand, I would find managing or investing in an LPO a bit dull because the business is all about running a process effectively. If I were to leave law and move to the business side of things, it would have to be something that I was passionate about or deeply interested in. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would be deeply passionate about outsourcing!

But as I said earlier, to each his own.

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