Making a splash

According to Leo Fattorini, director at procurement strategist Kennedy Cater Legal, the London Boroughs Legal Alliance (LBLA) (see London councils story) is 'more than just a legal panel'. Marks and Spencer gags aside, he's right. How many times on these pages have we seen 'value' listed by clients as the single most important factor when instructing a law firm? But instead of whining about not getting it, the collection of local authorities that make up the LBLA are actively restructuring their legal function to ensure taxpayers receive value for money.

It's not just the external services that will be revamped, but also the way local authority departments interact with each other. Before a law firm is invited to tender, the first port of call for transactions will be other in-house teams; work will be pitched across the network to ascertain whether it can remain within the organisation. Firms will also have to ensure that their industry savvy is up to scratch if they will be competing for work against in-house public law specialists.

'It's not just the public sector, all legal heads are under the same costs pressures at the moment,’ Fattorini asserts. Clearly, there is no suggestion that private-sector companies are able to pool legal resources in the same way as public bodies, but there are ways in which clients and law firms can partner in innovative ways. DuPont, Tyco - these names have become synonymous with cutting-edge price models. As technologies improve and the downturn bites, even the best law firms will have to become more amenable to finding new ways of managing budgets to retain clients. And there will be no going back, because if the legal services Big Bang hits as expected, cost will become even more important than it is now.

Legal Business - May 2009 by Maria Jackson