The Challenge

Burke & Associates Lawyers are a full-service law practice operating in Armadale, Victoria and one of the pioneers of using team SBA since 2012. Since the start of the practice Burke and Associates have grown massively. Starting from a sole practitioner focusing on commercial law, to a full-service practice offering support in areas of Property, Family, Wills and Estates, and VCAT administration alongside dispute resolution and mediation. As firm founder Tony Burke mentions in the video below “roughly 50% of overheads are attributable to labour costs. These costs can be a massive challenge for a firm jumping from a small to mid-sized operation.

Although the resourcing benefits outsourcing are clear, there was also cultural element that had to be addressed internally. Some members of the Burke team were apprehensive to send work to India.

The Solution

As one of the leading LPO providers in Australia for over a decade, we understand these concerns are logical questions when engaging an offshore team. So team SBA could better highlight the infrastructure and culture developed in our Indian offices, Burke and Associates sent two directors to Kolkata back in 2012. It is safe to say the trip was a great success, our teams spent a week getting to know each other, and the ways SBA could help compliment Burke & Associates operations.

This was the start of a budding relationship. As discussed in the video below, the assistance started with paralegal work such as transcribing dictations, legal research and matter openings. As Tony and the rest of the Burke team found out, quick access to extra staff was not the only benefit. By utilising the Time difference between Australia and India, internal staff could assign tasks to the away team at the end of their day, and head home knowing they would be greeted in the morning by the completed tasks, helping maintain some of that elusive work – life balance. The cost savings of outsourcing are obvious, but the increased mental outcomes for internal staff are too often overlooked.

Over the years SBA’s areas of support for Burke and Associates have grown from solely paralegal functions to:

• Accounting and Bookkeeping
• IT and Cyber Security support (Including penetration, phishing testing and cyber awareness training)
• Marketing Support (Blog writing, website changes, document design and formatting)
• Precedent support
• Many other Ad-hoc projects