Software giant, Microsoft, will begin outsourcing general legal work to India after signing a deal with legal process outsourcing (LPO) company CPA Global, it has been reported.

CPA has confirmed that it will be taking on ‘multi-jurisdictional legal research’ for Microsoft, but could not give further details. Microsoft has outsourced intellectual property (IP) work to CPA since 2005, although no lawyers work on the IP team.

Venu Nair, a CPA spokesman, told the Law Society Gazette that CPA plans to expand its Indian workforce from 600 to 1,000 by the end of 2011, and that the south Indian cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai are being considered as locations for a new CPA office.