Reckitt Benckiser (RB) is making plans to carry out a UK panel review, with Bill Mordan, senior vice president and group general counsel (GC), also looking to formalise the company’s current panel arrangement.
Continue reading “In-house: Reckitt Benckiser group GC Mordan looks to review and formalise panel”
Reckitt Benckiser (RB) is making plans to carry out a UK panel review, with Bill Mordan, senior vice president and group general counsel (GC), also looking to formalise the company’s current panel arrangement.
The multinational consumer goods company currently has an informal panel arrangement in the UK, which consists of a two-tier system of seven firms. Tier one comprises Magic Circle firms Slaughter and May, Allen & Overy and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, while tier two includes firms such as Eversheds and, in particular, Thrings’ office in Swindon, which support contract work, negotiations and some civil disputes.
Continue reading “Reckitt Benckiser group GC Mordan looks to review and formalise panel”
FTSE 100 company Severn Trent Water is to kickstart its tender process in a matter of weeks, as its current single-supplier mandate with Eversheds expires at the end of March 2015.
ITV is taking steps to embed its law firms in the fabric of the organisation by involving them in a new programme of training and development with its lawyers, as it also launches a new, extensive social mobility iniative involving private practice pairings with Microsoft, Yahoo and MTV. Continue reading “ITV pulls in panel firms in new development programme as it launches ‘gold plated’ CSR scheme”
As Barclays’ long-awaited review of its global legal panel moves closer to completion, it has emerged that the bank is set to shake up how it interacts with its external advisers with the introduction of corporate value accounts.
Continue reading “Worth the money: Barclays to introduce value accounts for upcoming legal panel”
Failure to meet value targets set to result in firms partially refunding banking giant
As Barclays’ long-awaited review of its global legal panel moves closer to completion, it has emerged that the bank is set to shake up how it interacts with its external advisers with the introduction of corporate value accounts.
Continue reading “Worth the money: Barclays to introduce value accounts for upcoming legal panel”
ITV is taking steps to embed its law firms in the fabric of the organisation by involving them in a new programme of training and development with its lawyers.
The initiative, spearheaded by ITV’s director of legal affairs and third-party sales relationships, Barry Matthews, together with general counsel (GC) Andrew Garard, will see ITV roll out a four-prong development programme this year that will see it work closely with panel firms to help them understand its strategy and commercial imperatives.
For lawyers with more than two years’ PQE, ITV has partnered with Olswang to run a ‘peer partnership programme’, in which private practice and in-house lawyers research and write together a piece of management consultancy to present to Garard and Olswang chief executive David Stewart.
Continue reading “ITV pulls in panel firms in new development programme”
National Grid‘s group general counsel (GC) Alison Kay (pictured) has launched a wholesale review of the FTSE 100 energy giant’s in-house and external legal function, which will look at whether the internal legal team is delivering the right services and adding value to the business, as well as a potential shake-up of both its UK and US external law firm panel.
The current UK panel, which was put together in 2011 when National Grid cut its roster of firms by 25% to 16, includes Allen & Overy, Linklaters, DLA Piper, Eversheds, CMS Cameron McKenna, Berwin Leighton Paisner and Field Fisher Waterhouse.
Eighteen months ago I met the general counsel (GC) of a FTSE 250 company to listen to his plans to parcel up parts of his deals, based on complexity, and hand each chunk to a different panel adviser based on skillset, capability and cost.
Until very recently, this level of micro-management – and the prospect that law firms would no longer be handed a deal lock, stock and barrel – was not going down well. Not long after meeting this GC, I sat between two well-known managing partners at a dinner and listened to them assert matter-of-factly that this sort of tinkering round the edges would never become mainstream.
Continue reading “The City elite is ready to try something new – are clients keeping up?”
Having worked her way up Nationwide‘s ranks to group general counsel, Liz Kelly is to leave the building society at the end of the financial year to spend more time with her family.
Kelly was appointed as general counsel in 2009 and has since pulled together what was a fractured legal department, creating a risk-based blueprint for areas where it needed to grow and building it up to around 50 lawyers, including seven litigators.
Continue reading “Calling time – Nationwide’s innovative GC Liz Kelly to leave after panel review”
