Howrey, a US-based law firm that specializes in antitrust, global litigation and intellectual property, is opening an office in Pune. While the firm cannot practise law in India under present regulations, managing partner Robert Ruyak described the move as “a new attempt by an American law firm to cut costs by creating an office in India that will handle document management in litigation, IP and arbitration matters”.
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He also insisted that the move is “not outsourcing”, but something completely different: “We will have our own people working on this,” he said.
Most of the work performed by the law firm is document-based and already handled by non-lawyers and paralegals. It’s not a huge leap, Ruyak hopes, to extend that work to India, where a paralegal would earn US$20,000 to US$25,000 per year, as opposed to US$40,000 to US$50,000 in the US.
The new office will have up to 15 Indian employees, many of whom will be recent graduates of Indian universities and Indian students from American colleges. They will train at the firm’s Virginia facility before returning to India.
Howrey partner Amit Saluja, an Indian-American corporate lawyer hired last year from Hogan & Hartson, will be overseeing the hiring and supervision of the new employees.
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