Because America stinks at lending money, India is the hottest place on earth to practice law, well American law at least

From The Economic Times:

"NEW DELHI: A slowdown in the US is giving a push to the Indian legal process outsourcing (LPO) sector. Indian LPO firms are reporting a rise of over 200% in revenues in the past 12 months as they see a dramatic rise in litigation, intellectual property infringement work and bankruptcy-related document drafting. The rise in new business from litigation is due to a crash in the stock markets post the subprime crisis, which led many stockholders to sue companies.

“We have seen a dramatic rise in business from the litigation and IP infringement verticals in the past three months as organisations look to make money form brand or IP infringements due to a slowdown in consumer spending in the US.

We have ramped up our headcount correspondingly by almost 50% and plan to scale up more in the coming months,” says Sanjay Kamlani, CEO of Mumbai-based Pangea3.

US companies are also looking to cut costs and offshore legal work to India as lawyers are one of the highest paid professions in the US. “A junior lawyer on the US east coast (where the major stock exchanges are located) makes about $1,65,000-$2,00,000 per year.

The same work can be done at one-tenth the cost in India. As companies look to cut costs we see a rise in our toplines,” says Matthew Banks, senior vice-president, Legal Services, Integreon.

Mumbai-based Integreon has about 420 associates in the LPO business and has seen an over 200% rise in revenues in the past 12 months."

Outsourcing Company still trying to discern difference between DC, Chicago

I received in my email today in regards to a patent paralegal ad:

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

Hello,

I saw your post on craigslist. I run a paralegal firm with experts in US law, JDs and LLMs from Top-tier US Law schools, Litigation and IPR experts with 20+ years of experience. We have an established team of IPR experts. Our team consists of prior art researchers, WIPO-certified patent draftees with over 20 years experience in USPTO and International patent work. We also offer best quality paralegal services in litigation, and we have experience in both Federal and State litigation, trials and appeals.

All this is provided at a very low price, because our work-office is in India.

You have posted a recruitment notice for the post of an Patent Paralegal. If telecommuting is permitted, we can save thousands of dollars for your firm and provide a much higher quality of service, because people who will oversee your work are US-educated lawyers and not secretaries or paralegals.

A lot of Chicago firms and corporations use our services and save money thereby. If you are similarly interested, please get back to us from a valid email ID and we willl provide you with website and contact information.

Sincerely

Sayak
On behalf of and in Asst. to CEO.

Warren Buffett: After the USA's slow and painful death, I will buy America for 200 Trillion Dollars, which will be equal to about 31 euros

From Reuters:

"The United States is already in a recession and it will be longer as well as deeper than many people expect, U.S. investor Warren Buffett said in an interview published in German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday.

He said the United States was "already in recession" and added: "Perhaps not in the sense that economists would define it" with two consecutive quarters of negative growth."

Predatory lenders must prove to be less predatory, more lender

From Sarah Murphy at Bliss PR:

Subprime Lawsuits: How to Defend Yourself
22/05/2008 - 15:02
"The pace of subprime-related litigation continues with no apparent end in sight as more and more lawsuits are filed against mortgage lenders, Wall Street firms that packaged and resold the mortgage loans into bonds and mortgage backed securities (“MBS”), and companies that invested in MBS. Many of the mortgage lender lawsuits are directed at underwriting practices and accounting estimates, including estimates related to allowance for loan losses, valuation of mortgage servicing rights and residual securities, and liabilities for loan repurchases.

What companies can do to defend themselves against these lawsuits depends on how they arrived at their accounting estimates and whether they can demonstrate that good faith efforts were made to determine those estimates based on information available at the time. Anthony Lendez, CPA, CFE, is a partner with BDO Consulting, a division of BDO Seidman, LLP, and can speak to the following best practices for the various defendants of these lawsuits:"

Creepy Dolls to remain creepy afterall

Somehow I missed this a two days ago. I think I need to work on better search terms.

"Mattel Inc. has settled with a former employee that designed the Bratz line of dolls, but will carry on with a suit against the maker of Bratz, MGA Entertainment, according to media reports."

Link to the full article is here.

Outsourcing: Law licenses, we don't need no stinkin law licenses.

From Livemint.com:
"New Delhi: Bad times for some American companies is turning into good times for India’s legal offshoring industry.

For reasons largely economic and partly cultural, India’s legal process outsourcing, or LPO, services providers have seen a sizeable uptick in business since the US economy has faltered. In particular, firms that handle support functions, such as reviewing documents and researching witnesses for US litigation, have enjoyed the biggest increases amid mounting disputes over who knew what and when in the mortgage and related markets meltdown."

There is also a video as well on this when you click the link. As an aside, I did not get one response from either DC Bar President-elect candidate regarding their opinion regarding this matter. I will follow up.

The good news is we will all be unemployed together. Oh and if you want to comment about how doc review is not the practice of law, blah, blah, blah, go ahead. I made my position pretty clear.

Off Topic: This is why I did not mention my four Masters and PhD

No I do not have four Masters and a PhD. This is a tidbit I found somewhat interesting at a blog called Leaving the Law:

"So the question of whether to dumb down your resume came up on the Career Track chat on washingtonpost.com. Specifically, the question was whether to leave off advanced degrees.
Here’s the short version of the debate:

I was having trouble getting a job and so began leaving off my MA thinking that employers would think I’m too young to have one (I was 23). Long story short, after doing so I received 5 offers for interviews and got a job. Few months later I told my boss about that casually and he laughed and told me I never would have been hired if he knew because he would have thought I’d want too much money. Unfortunately our society punishes very educated individuals sometimes.

When you are transitioning as a lawyer to nearly any other career field, you’re going to have to tackle this beast: Employers fear that you’ll want too much money, simply because you have a JD. I definitely ran up against this. It is now easier to at least get some interviews, now that I am four jobs deep in publishing—I’ve been out of law practice so long, even the more clueless employers probably figure I can’t easily go back to practicing law.

Forbes.com list America Recession Proof Cities, but DC is not on there, because DC is not a city, it is a district.

From Joshua Zumbrun of Forbes.com:
"Nationally, home prices are falling, unemployment is on the rise and the economy is expected to grow slowly--or even contract--in the first half of the year.
But some cities are doing just fine.
Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country's strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation's largest metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis."

Breaking news: Lawyers to benefit from other people's depression, nightmares

Told you it was going to be a busy summer. From Shannon Duffy:

Antitrust Class Action Certified Against GlaxoSmithKline

"A federal judge has certified a class action antitrust suit that accuses GlaxoSmithKline of using monopolistic tactics to boost its profits from Wellbutrin, a popular antidepressant, by delaying a generic version of the drug from coming to market.

The suit was brought by direct purchasers who claim that GSK concocted a plan to keep Wellbutrin prices high by making fraudulent assertions to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and by engaging in "sham" patent litigation against generic drug manufacturers.

According to the suit, the plan worked because the patent litigation delayed the market entry of generic versions of Wellbutrin, and the direct purchasers were forced to pay unnecessarily high prices for the drug, because no generic versions of bupropion were available for nearly two years after GSK's patent monopoly would have expired."

Hat tip to Steve Geisler for bring this to my attention.