SLASSCOM partners with Bar Association to promote legal outsourcing

Monday, 26 March 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

SLASSCOM, Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies has partnered with the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) with the aim of developing the capacity of the legal outsourcing industry in Sri Lanka and to promote Sri Lanka as an outsourcing destination for outsourced legal services. The MOU was signed between SLASSCOM Chairman Sujiva Dewaraja and BASL President Shibly Aziz, PC.

Sri Lanka boasts a large talent pool of qualified lawyers and law graduates with an excellent legal educational system. This includes the local LLB degrees offered by our universities, the program offered at the Law College including the many lawyers who follow external degrees affiliated to UK universities. In addition, we have a large pool of young lawyers who study overseas such as in the UK, Australian and American universities and who return to the country to work in this profession. The Sri Lankan legal system has been influenced by the English common law system which means that Sri Lankan lawyers in particular, have the skills to deal with certain legal matters relating to other common law countries.

In recognition of the potential, SLASSCOM along with BASL aims to make a concerted effort to position Sri Lanka as a premier destination for Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) in the legal sphere and turn Sri Lanka into a knowledge hub for legal outsourcing services. “BASL together with SLASSCOM will work together to jointly promote Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) as a career choice among lawyers and law students with a view to increase the number of legal professionals suitable to serve LPO organisations. We are delighted at the interest shown by young lawyers in legal process outsourcing and the timely nature of this initiative,” said Aziz. “We are geared towards driving Sri Lanka to reach our national goal of becoming the #1 industry to lead Sri Lanka to the Knowledge economy. Therefore, it is vital that we focus on building market awareness of our niche capabilities with legal outsourcing services being a centre of excellence where Sri Lanka can aim to differentiate ourselves with other outsourcing destinations in the region and compete for excellence. We are happy to note that this MOU will only further strengthen our legal centre of excellence and we invite companies operating in this industry to join us to take this initiative forward,” Dewaraja regarding this alliance between SLASSCOM and BASL.