valutrader: You make a good point about service jobs being
performable from places such as India, but it won't happen for lawyers. Calif's situation--lots of unaccredited (and mostly quite inferior) law schools, generally delivering much less qualified graduates into an already deep pool of lawyers--may be unusual. Plus Calif. is very PC. But even there I doubt that the state would permit Indians in India to take the bar exam and become licensed to practice in Calif. via email and phone.
That certainly won't happen in Texas, and I doubt in most states. Legislatures would be influenced by the bar association, of course, but also by legitimate concerns about the importance of knowing any of the cultural/social context involved in many legal decisions--something you can't get in India via a correspondence course in U.S. law.
To some extent this is "not fair." U.S. lawyers can work via cyberspace "in" a state, from another state or even nation. For example, I can do my legal work (largely research, analysis, and written advice) from anywhere in the world with a laptop and modem, without my clients even knowing where I am, and without location having the slightest effect upon what I produce! But that's not the norm (and I don't get to enjoy it either; my family keeps me in one spot). Most legal practice requires being present in a location for occasional depositions, hearings, and meetings.
Someone in India can't just come across the Pacific for a meeting or other "face time" with clients, judges, or opponents. Videoconferencing might allow more of that, but such Indian outsourcing would mostly have to be for relatively repetitive or non-fact-intensive legal work.
The second issue is that clients generally won't accept foreigners doing U.S. legal work unless they are desperate for legal help, in the sense of lacking the money to pay a lawyer. Those prospective clients wouldn't present much of a paying market for Indian members of a U.S. state bar trying to do work via cyberspace "in" U.S. states.
Whewwh!! Now I'm breathing easier! I need my clients a while longer. |
