Rio Tinto’s managing attorney Leah Cooper is moving from the mining giant to take up a position with the company’s outsourcing firm, CPA Global.
Last year, Cooper made headlines after deciding to outsource Rio Tinto’s low-end legal work to a team of Indian lawyers based in CPA Global’s Delhi office, in a move which cut the company’s legal costs by an estimated 20%, and also helped boost the image of the global outsourcing industry.
Cooper’s endorsement of the outsourcing industry came in the same year that the Association of Corporate Counsel, an organisation of in-house counsel of which Cooper is a member, sounded another warning bell with its ACC Value Index, ranking firms by the cost and quality of legal services provided. The Index was received with uncertainty from law firms who are increasingly facing pressure from clients for added value.
Cooper will manage CPA’s legal outsourcing portfolio. The company expects to utilise her experience as a general counsel to work with other legal departments in their push to cut legal costs. That may well herald another market development in the legal services industry, by further encouraging legal departments to request more from external counsel. “Joining CPA Global is an opportunity to continue to revolutionise the increasingly competitive legal services market,” said Cooper.
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