Almost inevitably, the O word is becoming a more prominent feature of legal headlines as the recession drags on. Whether it’s back-office work or qualified legal work, there is a definite pick up in the trend for outsourcing.

A survey towards the end of last year pointed to the fact that up to 10 of the UK’s largest firms had already begun offshoring some work. In the beginning, legal process outsourcing (LPO) (generally involving back office work) started the ball rolling with Clifford Chance, Eversheds and Pinsents all becoming early adopters. Now a growing number of firms are sending actual legal work overseas as well.

In April this year, it emerged that Simmons & Simmons were looking to outsource legal work to agency lawyers in low-cost jurisdictions. Shortly afterwards, mining giant Rio Tinto announced that it had agreed with outsourcing provider CPA Global to send legal work to a team of lawyers in India. Giving its legal advisors (which include Baker & Mckenzie, Herbert Smith and Linklaters) good reason to choke on their lattes. Soon after that, Pinsents raised eyebrows with their decision to outsource higher value legal work to South Africa.

More recently, details of Clifford Chance’s Gurgaon "knowledge centre" reducing overall costs to its clients by almost 20 per cent has no doubt piqued the interest of other firms, if not their clients. Indeed, it emerged that even Slaughters are now looking into outsourcing and The Lawyer reports that Clarke Willmott is also embacing outsourcing for low level work.

As we commented before, not everything can go offshore, partners will always need junior lawyers at hand and partnership ranks have to be made up from somewhere. These developments are not apocalyptic but what looked like the gradual remoulding of law firms appears to be picking up pace.