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Beyond outsourcing

31 October 2019 / Dan Reed
Issue: 7862 / Categories: Features , Profession , Legal services , Technology
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Dan Reed reports on the brave new world of enterprise legal services
  • Law firm spend and its impact.
  • Realising the potential for law firm transformation.
  • Steps to take for a win-win outcome.

Corporate legal spend has increased significantly in recent years as litigation and other risk has shot up the boardroom agenda. And control of that spend is a constant conversation topic between GCs and their C-Suite bosses, with knock-on impacts for the firms that advise them. Much has been written about the rise of innovative outsourcing and managed legal services arrangements, and of course the advent of legal super-tech, all focused on delivering more value in the legal supply for less money. It’s a brave new world of law being done differently, and with the right imagination the possibilities seem endless. But the opportunities are so much bigger than lawyers currently envisage. Done the right way and pushed to its full potential, the terms ‘outsourcing’ and ‘managed legal services’ don’t even cover it. Indeed, these descriptors become entirely inadequate.

Ambition

Lawyers

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Carey Olsen—Kim Paiva

Carey Olsen—Kim Paiva

Group partner joins Guernsey banking and finance practice

Morgan Lewis—Kat Gibson

Morgan Lewis—Kat Gibson

London labour and employment team announces partner hire

Foot Anstey McKees—Chris Milligan & Michael Kelly

Foot Anstey McKees—Chris Milligan & Michael Kelly

Double partner appointment marks Belfast expansion

NEWS
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has not done enough to protect the future sustainability of the legal aid market, MPs have warned
Writing in NLJ this week, NLJ columnist Dominic Regan surveys a landscape marked by leapfrog appeals, costs skirmishes and notable retirements. With an appeal in Mazur due to be heard next month, Regan notes that uncertainties remain over who will intervene, and hopes for the involvement of the Lady Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls in deciding the all-important outcome
After the Southport murders and the misinformation that followed, contempt of court law has come under intense scrutiny. In this week's NLJ, Lawrence McNamara and Lauren Schaefer of the Law Commission unpack proposals aimed at restoring clarity without sacrificing fair trial rights
The latest Home Office figures confirm that stop and search remains both controversial and diminished. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort University analyses data showing historically low use of s 1 PACE powers, with drugs searches dominating what remains
Boris Johnson’s 2019 attempt to shut down Parliament remains a constitutional cautionary tale. The move, framed as a routine exercise of the royal prerogative, was in truth an extraordinary effort to sideline Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC dissects how prorogation was wrongly assumed to be beyond judicial scrutiny, only for the Supreme Court to intervene unanimously
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