The recent push by major UK firms into non-legal services looks set to continue, with Bird & Bird and RPC both unveiling moves into non-legal consultancy, while Eversheds further expands its pioneering service.
Sticking with its technology, media and telecoms specialism, Bird & Bird in February established an IT project consultancy, Baseline, in a joint venture with Lancashire-based ASE Consulting. The endeavour sees partners, led by co-head of Bird & Bird’s transformational project team Dominic Cook, invest their own capital in the project, with the team agreeing to pass legal work back to the firm.
Baseline, which has an international remit, will initially focus on supporting challenging IT projects by providing support for legal, financial, commercial, technical and management aspects.
Cook told Legal Business: ‘It occurred to me that very often the lawyers only look at the lawyering of a particular project and not the root cause of what gave rise to the underlying issue. Frankly, any idiot can fix a contract; very few can actually fix the underlying root cause. I’ve done that with a number of Bird & Bird clients on projects and they have always asked why there wasn’t a multi-disciplinary offering that includes legal, technical, commercial and financial under a single roof that’s used to the dynamics of a major project.’
‘Very often the lawyers only look at the lawyering of a particular project and not the root cause of what gave rise to the underlying issue.’
Dominic Cook, Bird & Bird
RPC also last month unveiled a new insurance sector consultancy business, focusing on management issues with the hire of Rory O’Brien, the former global head of risk consulting and software at Towers Watson. O’Brien, who also served as managing partner and head of insurance management consultancy at EMB Consulting, will spearhead the firm’s venture to build an insurance management consulting team that will advise clients on issues ranging across strategy, capital management, operational efficiency, regulation, M&A and outsourcing.
Meanwhile, Eversheds Consulting bolted on a financial services regulatory compliance offering with the hire of six senior consultants and a team of compliance contractors. The standalone legal consultancy, which was established in 2010, brought in a team, including EY’s Jean-Paul Simoes, KPMG’s Jonathan Steward and former managing director of specialist regulatory and compliance practice Resources Global Professionals, Simon Collins. The new project, which is set to grow further over the coming months, will be headed by financial services partner David Saunders.
Cook believes that many law firms should now be considering such cost-effective solutions: ‘The practice of law has changed,’ he said. ‘A lot of lawyers have been slow waking up to that. As law becomes increasingly commoditised, why should clients pay the rates they’ve traditionally paid without added value? That’s exactly what I would be asking City firms.’
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk