OUTSIDERS’ INFLUENCE INNOVATORS
SANJAY KAMLANI
DAVID PERLA
SIR DAVID CLEMENTI
The Clementi Report
London
Pangea3
Mumbai and New York
The Clear Choice
IF YOUR DOCUMENT review is being done
in Mumbai instead of Minneapolis, that’s
probably due to the efforts of Sanjay Kamlani (pictured) and David Perla, founders of
the legal process outsourcing firm Pangea3.
They were pioneers in persuading U.S. law
firms and law departments to shift their
commodity legal tasks to India. Two years
later, Thomson Reuters Corporation bought
them out for an undisclosed sum (India’s
Business Standard newspaper estimated it
at $40 million). The size of the Indian LPO
market that Pangea3 helped create is expected to grow to $1.1 billion by 2014.
The accountant who brought transparency to the U.K. legal system.
MARLA PERSKY
Baxter Healthcare
Corporation
Washington, D.C.
FOR MARLA PERSKY, chief of litigation at
Baxter Healthcare Corporation in the early
1990s, the reasoning was simple: Women
were suing her company for its allegedly
toxic breast implants; female lawyers should
be the ones to defend the company. At the
time, that strategy—one of the first to put
women at the helm of high profile cases—
was unorthodox, but Perksy pursued it anyway, decreeing that every trial team must
include a woman. “It was a very clever and
progressive move,” says Zoe Littlepage, who
represented plaintiffs in the litigation. Effective too: Baxter went to trial 25 times, winning 18 defense verdicts.
STEVEN BOCHCO
Cocreator of L.A. Law
Los Angeles
COCREATOR OF TELEVISION’S L.A. Law, Steven Bochco added gloss to lawyers’ daily
grind, demonstrating that one person’s job
is another’s entertainment. The workplace
drama, which aired for eight years starting
in 1986, was built around a diverse group of
lawyers at a small general practice firm. This
depiction—including female rainmakers,
cases for junior lawyers to litigate, hours for
interoffice romance—is credited with inspiring many Gen Xers to go to law school. “
After doing [gritty cop show] Hill Street Blues
for five years, I thought that a law firm in
Los Angeles would be a wonderful environment: upscale and colorful,” Bochco says.
LEGAL BUSINESS in the United Kingdom is currently in the midst of a quiet revolution. Much of
it is due to one individual: Sir David Clementi. A
former deputy governor of the Bank of England,
Clementi was asked in 2003 by the then secretary
of State for constitutional affairs, Baron Falconer
of Thoroton, to undertake a wide-ranging review
of the country’s legal services industry.
It was a surprising choice. An accountant by
trade, Clementi had no background in the law,
although a prior five-year stint as a nonexecutive
director of the Financial Services Authority left
him well-equipped to navigate what he calls the
“regulatory maze” that governed U.K. legal services at the time.
“Few people in the law were aware of [Clem-
enti], but he quickly proved himself to be a se-
riously impressive and capable character,” recalls
former Irwin Mitchell senior partner Michael
Napier, who was one of the many people Clem-
enti consulted with during his 18-month review.
“He played a pivotal role in the shaping of the
profession over the next generation and beyond.”
Clementi’s final 141-page report, published
in December 2004, called for several sweeping
changes, which were enacted in 2007, through
the Legal Services Act. His first recommendation
was to separate the regulatory and representative
responsibilities of The Law Society, which led in
2009 to the establishment of an independent reg-
ulator, the Legal Services Board. An independent
body for consumer complaints, The Legal Om-
budsman, was also created.
