Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28
Page 29
Page 30
Page 31
Page 32
Page 33
Page 34
Page 35
Page 36
Page 37
Page 38
Page 39
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
Page 44
Page 45
The Legal Department of the Future February 2016 LocalGovernmentLawyer18 volume by the indicative time that its going to take to complete that particular type of work. And you come up with a total number of hours that you need for the year. If you do that for all work types you have the total number of hours that you need for each time and for the whole of Legal Services. And if you divide that by the chargeable hours target you have per person somewhere around 1400 I need 160 staff. And if work continues to increase by 5-10 each year I can justify further recruitment but without the data it can be a real battle to persuade people that we need more resource. This kind of management information is also increasingly important for the efficient management of internal workflows to enable heads of legal to predict as far as possible where work is likely to arise and to be able to resource it efficiently. In doing so it was suggested legal departments might also be able to reverse the decline in status they have suffered in recent years. We need to be a lot smarter about this one delegate said. Rather than just providing everything we need to focus on doing the things that we can do really well and trying to ensure that the run-of-the-mill work can be done by the client or at an appropriate level. Thats what members and chief officers are looking for - good quality advice that helps them achieve what they want to do and that will enhance the role of the legal department. At Southwark a further internal solution to cost pressures is the development and recruitment of a number of specialist lawyers to the team in an effort to reduce its reliance on private practice in key areas and to enhance the visibility of the legal team in high-profile transactions. The council currently has two specialising in contracts and procurement and one in litigation with another planned for adult social care. Although the pay scales for specialist lawyers are similar to those of team leaders they do not have managerial responsibilities freeing them up to concentrate on their practice-focused roles. Again Forrester-Brown said while the creation of specialist roles required some tough negotiating with HR backed up by data derived from the automation of many of the departments processes and that creating specialist roles within existing local authority pay structures would continue to be challenging it is worth the effort. What is more the development of specialist practitioners also has the potential to address some of the career development issues identified by respondents to the Local Government Lawyer careers survey which threaten to undermine the drive for greater efficiency and quality within in-house teams. Budget cuts delayering and the growth of shared legal services mean that the number of management roles is diminishing with a potentially deleterious effect on morale and productivity. Weve been lucky that weve found people who dont want to be managers but are quite happy to do that specialist work Forrester-Brown told delegates. In terms of improving the reputation of the department and taking on areas of work that weve previously sent out theyve done some excellent work. Trading places To date the most visible way that many legal departments have responded to the squeeze on resources is by forming shared services arrangements. The survey found that 26 of respondents were already part of a shared service and the same proportion again were actively considering doing the same and the delegates agreed that the formation and expansion of shared services still has a long way to run. Love it or loathe it we are being pushed towards more working together and therefore size and strength will be an inevitability for all of us Victoria McNeill Head of Law at Norfolk County Council and the nplaw shared service. There was less consensus however on the future of externally traded legal services and whether selling legal services complements or clashes with the development of shared services operations. Being part of a shared service is not necessarily a prerequisite for external trading but the skills required to establish one are important to trading legal services successfully on any sort of scale. In particular being able to manage internal workflows properly is essential said Paul Evans of the South London Legal Partnership. We need to squeeze out every little bit of efficiency before we go on to charge others. Unless youre really on top of your game why is anyone going to buy it Moreover as Angela Hutchings at Essex pointed out you need to understand the data produced by your practice to understand what your costs are and where your potential advantages lie. You One of the strengths of local government is were not just a reprise of private practice. I think one of the traps that we are in danger of falling into is regarding our services as some kind of market where were competing for each others next meal. But what were really trying to do is keep public money in the public sector. Linda Walker HB Public Law Love it or loathe it we are being pushed towards more working together and therefore size and strength will be an inevitability for all of us. Victoria McNeill Norfolk County Council