BLP Managed Legal Service

Here are some answers to questions raised by clients and industry commentators we have spoken to, providing further information on how the service works and the benefits it brings. If you would like any more information or think the service may be useful to you, please contact your usual BLP contact or email managedlegalservice@blplaw.com. 

1.  What is unique about the BLP Managed Legal Service? It is unique because it is not only about providing quality legal services, it is about taking responsibility for managing all or a discrete part of the clients' legal needs (including the design and performance of the on-site team) and guaranteeing better quality, budget certainty and efficient delivery.

2.  Is the BLP Managed Legal Service only capable of applying to all our legal requirements? No. The BLP Managed Legal Service may involve the management of your requirements in a particular practice area, business unit and/or geographic region. The service is flexible and can be adapted to suit the specific requirements of each client.

3.  How will you handle our international requirements? Multi-sourcing to deliver the optimum solution for clients is an inherent part of the delivery strategy under the BLP Managed Legal Service.  In the international arena, this involves the selection of high quality legal service partners in different countries who will work with us to guarantee performance standards, budget certainty and efficient delivery.

4.  Do we need to have a multi-million pound legal spend to benefit from this new service? There is a correlation between the scale of the potential benefits for the client and the extent of its legal needs.

5.  Is BLP equipped to take on all of the work as a single provider? The BLP Managed Legal Service incorporates a multi-sourcing capability designed to ensure that the best solution is available for the whole range of different tasks.  BLP has the breadth and depth of capability to handle the more complex assignments.

6.  How much will my company save through this approach? This new way of managing legal services offers the potential for significant cost-savings. These will result from the elimination of the inefficiencies inherent in managing a panel and  in-house and external lawyers, use of BLP systems and streamlined processes, as well as savings from ensuring that the tasks inherent in any assignment are delivered as efficiently as possible through effective multi-sourcing.

7.  You say you offer budget certainty. How are you able to do this? We do this via a thorough analysis and assessment of legal needs and sophisticated financial modelling. One of our goals is to simplify arrangements and eliminate uncertainty to the maximum extent possible.

8.  Does our in-house team have to transfer across? There will always be a retained legal function who will own legal risk and manage our relationship.  It is highly likely that taking over management of the channel for the delivery of legal services will involve the transfer across of a significant part of the in-house team to provide onsite support and advice.

9.  How do clients monitor and evaluate performance? A rigorous set of key performance targets are established as part of the commercial agreement. In addition systemised client surveys are introduced and a formal relationship review takes place periodically.

10.  Will the business users of the new legal service notice much difference? We expect that business users will notice the difference.  The onsite team will typically be supported by improved IT, systems and processes, they will receive bespoke legal training and know-how resources, they will be burdened with less administration and have more time to “lawyer” and they will be organised in a way which responds to the assessment of business needs. The online surveys will provide snapshots of the quality of service received permitting any remedial action to take place quickly.

11.  Will this approach mean that General Counsel have greater time to provide strategic advice to the Board? Yes, the good news for General Counsel is that this will free them up to provide strategic advice to the Board rather than managing their teams and law firm panels.