Legal Outsourcing- A Right Way and a Wrong Way

A legal practice is a symphony of balance involving billing in tenths of an hour, obtaining clients, working successfully with support staff, associates and partners, marketing yourself and your firm, continually keeping up to date with the changes in the legal field, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Odds are, solo-practitioners and smaller firm attorneys eventually reach a point where they need more hands then they have in-house. Outsourcing time-consuming legal work is a growing solution for these busy attorneys. One future lawyer who has allegedly “high expectations and an exceptional work ethic” (necessary attributes for any successful attorney) has jumped the gun in terms of efficiency. He is attempting to outsource the task of applying to law school.

Needless to say, this individual is definitely ambitious. He plans to apply to nine law schools in a rather short period. The greatest aspect of his ad is the responsibilities he wants to outsource; the same tasks that take up a majority of a legal students’ day: “research, essay writing, obtaining all documents, proper submission [of documents]. . . “ And so on; you get the point. Sadly, if this individual cannot handle his own research, writing, and document procurement nor can he spell Georgetown correctly, he will most likely not survive law school. Lawyers know running a successful legal practice is about organization, attention to detail, a high-level of paperwork, research, and so much more. These same lawyers have also done their dirty work including all the studying, research, writing, reading cases, drafting endless memos required during and beyond law school. Although this individual in the Craigslist ad may have the right idea, he is missing the gumption necessary for success in law school and really any legal job. Even Attorneys realize that not ever task can be outsourced… applying to law school is definitely one of those tasks.