Howrey is to become the first major US firm to open an office in India, writes The American Lawyer, in a move the intellectual property (IP) specialist hopes will give its clients a low-cost option for document management.

The new branch, which will open in Pune this month with around 15 staff, will handle documents in litigation, IP and arbitration matters pending around the world. Clients will have the choice of whether to use the Indian office or keep work in the US.

Howrey management partner Robert Ruyak said the move was "not outsourcing" and would be "just like if you had people working at home or in another location".

He commented: "We will have our own people working on this. It's training, it's control, maintaining the security, the quality of the results."

Howrey already hands much of its document management work to an office in Virginia staffed by more than 200 employees, most of whom are non-lawyers.

The firm now aims to extend that work to India, where a paralegal would earn $20,000-$25,000 (£10,160-£12,700) per year, as opposed to $40,000-$50,000 (£20,320-£25,400) in the US.

The move comes with a number of major UK firms – including magic cirlce giant Clifford Chance – having already opened offices in India to handle back-office functions such as accounting and IT. But Howrey is the first firm in the AmLaw 200 to open an office in India to handle client work.

Howrey corporate partner Amit Saluja, who joined the firm last year from Hogan & Hartson, will divide his time between Washington DC and the new office.

The firm plans to hire recent graduates from Indian universities and top Indian students out of US colleges and graduate programmes, who would train at the Virginia facility before returning home to India.

The firm hopes to eventually create similar offices in Europe and Asia.

"We'll have to see how it goes," Ruyak added.

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The American Lawyer is a US sister title of Legal Week.