Many of the largest law firms rely on outside consultants litigation support in their efforts to help win high-profile cases that cannot be avoided or favorably settled.  This goal often can be achieved more effectively, in less time, and at less expense through outsourcing to consulting firms than through in-house resources. Firms that specialize in litigation support are ready at a moment’s notice to assemble highly-skilled, multi-disciplinary teams of investigative experts.

Now the small and mid size law firms had also started using the service of third party service / legal outsourcing (LPO) firm in India to enhance their efficiency without requiring them to invest a large sum in the infrastructure.  Outsourcing helped them to reducing their cost by 50%.  The following kind of services are generally outsourced to third party i.e. Organizing, analyzing, filing and preparing chronologies, Drafting complaints and summons, Drafting responsive pleadings and answers, Drafting correspondences, Maintaining your calendar, Searching Liens, Searching databases such as EDGAR and searching business entities, Preparing a synopsis of judgments and cases, Digitizing legal publications, judgments and cases, analyzing SEC forms, preparing deposition summaries, Preparing Power Point presentations on legal issues, preparing briefs and motions, helping you obtain title searches, docket sheets and judgments, discovery management services, searching securities class litigation, objective and subjective coding, Indexing and organizing services, document scanning and processing, optical Character Recognition (OCR) services, storing of online databases. 

Litigators need to know crucial facts, if they are to protect their clients from adverse court rulings, to help resolve unavoidable disputes, to disprove their adversary’s allegations, or to prove their own. In addition to experienced investigators, auditors, data base researchers and analysts, investigative consulting firms bring industry experts into their teams. For example, in legal disputes involving construction, the investigative consultant firm should be able to field a team of expert’s in general contracting, architecture and engineering, among other disciplines.

Investigative firms will identify witnesses and run background checks on defendants, witnesses and deposition subjects. They will conduct asset searches aimed at determining whether proposed litigation is cost-justified. They can profile individuals and entire corporations by tapping into their vast network of public databases as well as their own proprietary databases. An effective investigative firm will also have a wide network of contacts to draw upon in law enforcement, regulatory agencies, media and private industries, and will have the ability to perform sophisticated computer forensic audits and other types of analysis.

Immediately after a complaint has been filed, a litigation support firm can work with a law firm to plan, strengthen and execute the firm’s strategy – and anticipate an adversary’s strategy. By gathering hard-to-get facts, the investigative consultant can identify weaknesses and points of vulnerability on both sides. Integrity issues affecting your adversary (even if unrelated to the gravamen of the complaint) can help drive settlements. Has the adversary previously engaged in misconduct similar to that which you allege in your complaint? Even if your adversary has a strong case, will it nonetheless be exposing itself to regulatory or law enforcement scrutiny as a result of the investigation?

The same arsenal of investigative services for litigation support can be equally, if not more, valuable before litigation begins. This is at a time when an investigation can be targeted at developing a complete and accurate account of what happened. Since pre-litigation investigations are not limited by the rules that come into effect once a complaint has been filed (e.g., proscriptions against contact with employees of an adversary), a litigation support specialist may find evidence that cannot be easily obtained later through the usual avenues of discovery. Our experience has shown that the result of a pre-litigation investigation is often a better informed and more effective approach to the entire process.