Law firms rush to hire IITians

Seeking to tap the billiondollar growth prospects in legal process outsourcing (LPO) business, law firms are exploring all possible avenues in their bid to attract talent, including hiring talent from IITs that are better known for churning out engineers.

The LPO business in India is expected to grow to $5 billion in less than five years, though it was nearly non-existent just a few months back.

With the shortage of talent being a major hurdle for niche outsourced works like patent drafting, the law firms are rushing to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other premier engineering colleges in the country for hiring, besides law schools.

Recently, the country's leading LPO firm Pangea3 recruited 30 graduates from the current academic session at various IITs.

The IITians hired by Pangea3 are "very excited about the opportunity to work with innovative ideas at the cutting edge of technology for Silicon Valley companies," the company's CEO Sanjay Kamlani told PTI. In a bid to attract IIT graduates, the law firms are believed to be offering a starting salary of close to Rs 10 lakh per annum.

"It is this niche, high quality work that is attracting IITians and other top engineering school graduates to join," Kamlani said.

The engineers work along with patent lawyers to draft patent applications and analyse intellectual patents (IP), combining expertise in law and technology.

Presently, Pangea3 has seven IIT graduates in its Intellectual Property team, which includes three with Masters degree (MTech) and others Bachelors degree (BTech).

There are a couple of more firms currently doing LPO business in the country, namely GB Law Solutions and Office Tiger.