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LocalGovernmentLawyer The Legal Department of the Future February 2016 21 look after these things so that everybody else could get on with their day jobs. We are seeing more and more organisations saying to us that theyd like to do these things but they dont have the capacity to grow. I say sometimes that yes its an additional cost but you just have to find the money and in time reap the rewards. Its invest to save basically. One initiative undertaken by HB Public Law has been to form a partnership with Bevan Brittan LLP in which HB Public Law can benefit from its marketing expertise and make joint pitches with the law firm at blended rates. There was clearly interest from the delegates in how trading authorities could learn from private practice yet concern that entering into partnerships could damage the public sector ethos and lead to some one-sided financial arrangements. One or two past experiences of partnering with private practice have not been good one firms idea of partnering on a 200000 contract was to pocket 180000 of it commented one but Linda Walker at HB Public Law is generally positive about the concept. For us the benefits are getting the expertise on marketing sharing of information and the capacity to spend time on marketing activities. We do get better service as clients as well because we know that we have that closer working relationship she said. ABS or not ABS The other question arising from trading is whether it is best conducted through an Alternative Business Structure ABS. At the time of the roundtable there was generally a wait and see approach to ABSs reflecting the survey which showed that only 4 have already applied or were in the processing of applying for ABS status with 21 seriously considering ABS status and 25 considering it in the medium term. Since the survey and roundtable however the Solicitors Regulation Authority SRA has announced its view that conducting reserved legal activities outside of their local area would require local authorities to set up an ABS so the context of the question has since changed. The obvious disadvantages of setting up an ABS are its cost and taxation status while the advantages include the flexibility to act for clients of all kinds and locations as well as freedom from public sector pay restraints if lawyers are employed directly by the ABS. For HB Public Law setting up an ABS was essential if the original councils Harrow and Barnet were to continue to advise their client departments as many were being outsourced. Where services have been outsourced to private companies the only way we could continue to provide legal services to them was through the ABS Linda Walker said. I think that for other organisations that have either gone down that road or are looking at it the primary driver is to retain their clients. However Southwarks Forrester-Brown felt that the attention given to ABSs has proved to be a distraction from giving proper consideration to other potential responses to the challenges faced by the sector. These include more creative ways of working with private practice the development of centres of excellence between authorities in key areas such as procurement and contracts and the continued evolution of shared services arrangements for example by working collaboratively to ensure that routine work is handled at a junior level across authorities to drive efficiencies. I think theres a bit more creative thinking to be done about what that relationship with the private sector could look like and how that could be offered more widely across local authorities and I take the view that my legal department My legal department can be working with a series of models that helps us to deliver an efficient and effective legal service. There may be other creative options that weve still not really explored in part because we have spent so much time exploring the ABS model. Doreen Forrester-Brown London Borough of Southwark