The announcement of a 5th redundancy round at Eversheds came straight off the back of new outsourcing proposals. Expectant graduates may well be horrified by the idea that the relatively scarce number of junior positions are being squeezed further as jobs are shipped offshore. But there is an argument that suggests outsourcing may eventually make life at the junior end of the legal profession more stimulating and more rewarding.

AmLawDaily: If you’re a new law school graduate looking for work, or an equity partner seeking to profit this year (and maybe next) from the leverage that high-priced associates add to your firm’s bottom line, outsourcing sounds like a bad idea. But for those concerned about the long-run psychological well-being of the profession, the implications are more ambiguous.
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With these trends, new law school graduates will face shrinking labor markets, especially at entry-level positions in big firms. But for the fortunate few who get jobs, their work could get better as outsourced labor performs some of the menial tasks that now account for most young associates’ billable hours.

Meanwhile, senior attorneys will have new incentives to mentor proteges so they become their firms’ next generation of leaders.

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Junior lawyers are often left wondering why such a lot of brainpower is required for the donkeywork they are lumped with at the early stages of a legal career. All those exams and a year at law school to become a glorified admin assistant. If the really tedious grind was shipped off to India or elsewhere leaving them free to engage their brains and be properly mentored into “their firms’ next generation of leaders” as the article enticingly puts it, who would complain?