Legal firm Eversheds South Africa is to pilot an innovative joint venture with Eversheds UK to provide a range of outsourced legal services more cost-effectively to the firm’s UK clients.
“Discussions with our UK office started in December 2009 about the drafting of leases for a major UK based client, who had requested that this service be outsourced in order to cut costs,” Sven Laurencik, a partner at the Johannesburg office that is managing the joint venture in South Africa, said in a statement this week.
This initial project acted as a catalyst in developing discussions to provide services for other clients, from February 2010 onwards, in a joint venture between the firm’s UK and Johannesburg offices.
The new services will include high-volume work such as mortgage repossessions and insurance recoveries on a case-ownership basis, while personal injury claims and employment tribunal work may be taken on at a later stage.
“This is different to the outsourcing concept followed by many organisations, where work is mainly outsourced because it only requires low-level skills,” Laurenick said.
“We provide high-quality professionals and the same quality of legal expertise as our UK office with good turnaround times at lower rates than the UK, simply because overheads for legal services are lower in South Africa and the exchange rate is in our favour.”
Source:http://www.southafrica.info/business/trends/newbusiness/eversheds-250110.htm
