David Boyd and Stephen Kitts of Eversheds give insight into their unique consulting practice, designed to aid clients on a range of issues beyond traditional legal advice.
Introduction
As a major global law firm with a very strong local presence, we advise clients of all shapes and sizes across many geographical regions. In addition to our core legal advice, Eversheds is unique in having an established and fully integrated international consulting practice advising our clients’ in-house teams in relation to the challenges currently facing them. We discuss below some of those key challenges – there is not a one-size-fits-all in this context but we are finding a number of recurring themes in the current market – and some of the solutions to these.
Flexible legal resource
Through engaging with its clients in Asia, Eversheds has recognised the demand in the region and in October 2015 launched Eversheds Agile in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Eversheds Agile is a great example of how we at Eversheds continually approach the delivery of our services in new and different ways. Eversheds Agile aims to support our clients with their traditional in-house work by placing with them high quality lawyers on a contract basis. This can be by way of a full time fixed term placement or on a much more flexible basis, giving our clients and Eversheds Agile lawyers any number of options to meet their respective needs.
Eversheds Agile not only enables us to build on our existing relationships with clients, but opens up new ones as well and we have had some great feedback. Phillip Simpson, General Counsel at Equifax Ltd said:
“I had a requirement at short notice for an experienced proactive commercial lawyer – I contacted Eversheds Agile and very quickly they were able to put in front of me two very impressive candidates. The lawyer I selected quickly integrated into my team and was extremely well received by the business – and had great technical skill. Eversheds also provided close support throughout the placement. I would certainly use the service again.”
Legal consulting
We find that many in-house legal departments are under increasing pressure to do more with less. In addition to delivering a high quality service to the business, General Counsel must react to many different demands including major regulatory or policy change, delivering a strategic vision, significant restructuring, legal risk management and responding to sudden business growth. General Counsel are often challenged by the business to demonstrate value and this can be a significant challenge particularly when relevant data may not be readily available.
Most of our work in this area involves the design and implementation of a legal strategy as well as a detailed interrogation of work currently done within the legal department. We often find that work is not being delivered in an optimal way, making it difficult for the legal department to meet the above challenges and demonstrate value. Our recommendations usually involve designing processes and ‘playbooks’ to ensure that work is being delivered by the right people, in the right place, in the right way and at the right price. This can also lead to certain work being taken away from the legal team or automated.
Of course, when implementing a new strategy and new processes, it is crucial to be aware at all times of the culture of the particular organisation, and that will be very influential in shaping solutions.
Technology consulting
We find that many legal departments would like to implement technological solutions to drive efficiency, manage risk and generate meaningful management information, as well as, where possible, automate document production. These drivers are all connected to the overriding challenges we find affecting our clients’ legal departments discussed in ‘Legal consulting’ above. However, securing budget, getting on the agenda of the corporate IT department and selecting the right solution each require a significant amount of time and persistence, and rarely result in the intended benefits. We find that most IT departments devote their resources and energy to serving the core business and often the legal department is left with inadequate systems.
We spend a lot of time advising our clients on utilising existing technologies to provide bespoke solutions for legal teams of all sizes. We work closely with our clients helping to define how technology can become a key enabler to the delivery of successful legal strategies. We find that our clients’ objectives, priorities and current technological environment are key considerations in identifying opportunities for system-driven improvements. Often, we find that our clients have access to industry-leading solutions without realising it, and we assist with the configuration to handle legal-specific requirements therefore enabling them to be utilised effectively.
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Risk and compliance
In the ever-changing legal climate, General Counsel and in-house legal teams must be constantly aware of new and changing laws, regulatory requirements and organisational risk. The aim must be to create a culture of proactive compliance and risk management, but this is no simple task, particularly across multiple jurisdictions.
The stakes are high, with tough punishments being handed out to organisations and individuals. However, with the right priorities and dedicated specialists, the complexity can be reduced and the risks to business minimised.
In recognition of this, we often find that our clients’ legal teams are made responsible for compliance as well as legal in a combined function, and many lawyers find this a challenge as they have no experience or formal training in compliance.
We increasingly carry out expert evaluation and advice on our clients’ global governance, risk and compliance strategies and the implementation of this. We find that our clients need bespoke, prioritised action plans and our assistance with implementation in order to deliver lasting change, allowing them to take control of risk and compliance activities.
Talent management
We find that many legal departments have grown in recent years but legal department structures have not necessarily developed at the same pace, meaning that career progression may be ill-defined and processes around supervision and management unclear. Development of new processes discussed in ‘Legal consulting’ above may give rise to a clear picture of work types and ensure that it is being done at the right level. This also gives an excellent opportunity to the legal team structure to be refined with a view to ensuring that individuals within it are doing appropriate work and have clarity as to how they can progress.
Retaining and motivating talented individuals is even more important given that a number of world regions are seeing growth again following the financial crisis, and job mobility is on the increase.
We are increasingly advising our clients in developing talent management strategies aimed specifically at lawyers whilst, at the same time, working alongside specialist Eversheds employment lawyers, ensuring compliance with employment regulations minimising legal risk at all times.
Eversheds’ Asia managing partner Stephen Kitts commented:
“Whilst Eversheds is a relatively new entrant in the Asia market, we have a strong reputation for delivering high quality legal advice and challenging the status quo to deliver new and fresh offerings, designed to meet what clients need in a fast changing environment.
“Having had discussions with existing clients in Asia over the last few months, we are confident that there is a real appetite for our Eversheds Agile services which we are excited to offer to both new and existing clients in the region.”
david@eversheds.com
stephenkitts@eversheds.com
www.eversheds.com
Eversheds Sutherland
