Doc in a Box

Business 2.0 (June 2007, p. 42) provides the latest in outsourcing. American lawyers can outsource their forensic medicine research in real time. As they depose the doctors from the opposing side, the lawyers send an audio record, via skype, to a team of Indian medical specialists. These overseas docs confer (out of hearing range) and IM questions that the lawyers should ask. As they answer, the docs in India then provide follow up questions, getting the opposing docs to go on the record -- and frequently to qualify their testimony.

The American law firms pay an Indian firm 75 bucks an hour for the service. After taking its cut, the Indian firm pays the docs in the box $20 to $25 per hour, about twice their Indian rates.