Tuesday's Headlines: Wall Street Lawyers in India Run Outsourced Operations

Outsourcing to India Draws Western Lawyers [NY Times]

India's fast-growing legal outsourcing industry is actively recruiting American and British lawyers to run operations there. The trend to move work such as document review, due diligence and contract management to India is spearheaded by cash-conscious Wall Street banks, along with insurance firms, mining giants, and industrial conglomerates.

Global Investment Banks to Deepen Staff Cuts in Japan [Bloomberg News]

Japan faces further cutbacks in global banking jobs as volume of IPOs and merger deals there lags far behind China and Hong Kong. Foreign financial firms that cut about 5,000 jobs in Japan over the past two years are poised to "freeze their hiring and launch another round of restructuring" there, says the CEO of Tokyo-based Executive Search Partners Co.

Filling The Talent Gap With Private Bankers [RegisteredRep]

Big retail brokerage firms are increasingly looking to recruit client-facing talent away from private banks. To be successful, the firms should adopt hybrid compensation models (salary plus bonus) that don't make private bankers dive into the brokerage sector's commission-based model all at once.

Proprietary Traders May Find Hedge Fund Life Harder [Reuters]

It won't be easy for banks' proprietary desks and traders to reinvent themselves hedge funds to comply with the Volcker Rule. Among other challenges, they'll have to cope with higher funding costs, less capacity to exploit illiquid markets, and reduced infrastructure support.

Volcker Rule Impact Sends Shivers Through Banks [Reuters, via Wall Street & Technology]

Notwithstanding recent moves by Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to exit from or reconfigure proprietary trading or alternative investments businesses, most banks will be able to comply with the Volcker Rule without making dramatic changes to their structure.

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