Under the Obama Administration’s new policy, some of the 300,000 immigrants (many of them Philippine nationals) who are currently involved in removal proceedings that do not have any criminal history may be eligible to obtain work authorization and remain in the United States for an indefinite period.  However, it remains unclear whether undocumented immigrants who do not have deportation proceedings pending against them may be able to benefit from the change of policy.

U.S. immigration lawyers in the Philippines have been receiving thousands of questions from undocumented immigrants who are not presently in deportation proceedings asking if they could be helped by the new policy.  Because the policy clearly applies to individuals who are now involved in deportation proceedings and clear guidance has not been issued as to whether the policy would apply to undocumented immigrants who voluntarily choose to put themselves in deportation cases, such a move by an undocumented immigrant would be unlikely to improve their status.

Its a known fact that today, legal service providers can no longer rely on an unwavering acceptance of the old model which according to Cisco General Counsel Mark Chandler describes as “the last vestige of medieval guild system to survive into the 21st century.”  Instead, lawyers and law firms must deliver value and thus, this is one of the primary reasons why legal process outsourcing (LPO) to the Philippines is likely to prosper throughout the incoming years. 

Not too long ago, there appeared to be a general conscious that clients would simply bow down and accept the overall “pyramid structure” of large law firms which generally required clients to pay a king’s ransom for massive hourly billing by a large team of junior associates at the bottom who had no idea of what they were doing and as result, purposely bill more hours than what was required.  These junior associates were made up of fresh law graduates but thanks in part to the recession, clients have started to rebel against these steep rates and refuse to be billed by beginner lawyers.