Tackling one of the most prestigious and high-profile jobs in the public sector, the London Development Agency's Debbie Adams is intent on making changes. Michelle Madsen reports

Since making the move to the London Development Agency (LDA) from air traffic control company NATS last year, general counsel Debbie Adams has set in motion the wheels of change at the body's legal team.

After inheriting a skeleton legal team of nine secondees and temporary lawyers, Adams earlier this year began hiring a raft of new lawyers at all levels of seniority. She says that her new team will be able to tackle a daily diet of contracts and projects work as well as playing a major role in Adams' ambitious plan to slash the LDA's annual legal costs by £3m. It is no mean feat for a body that is charged with tackling a raft of major projects, including a wealth of complex legal issues surrounding the 2012 Olympics and ensuring the legacy of related development.

She explains that it has taken some time to re-jig the team: "The legal department has suffered from a lack in continuity since [previous head] Thelma Stober left but now I am recruiting permanent staff. We are in the process of fine-tuning and developing best practice as well as standardising contracts."

Adams was appointed general counsel last April, replacing interim legal chief Mike Lancaster, who took on the role after the LDA's well-regarded legal chief Stober, who played a role in securing the Olympic bid for London, was injured in the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.

Prior to NATS, Adams' stints at Angel Trains and Eurotunnel gave her the experience and skills that she is looking forward to applying to the LDA.

Regenerating London, however, involves more than just putting in place a lasting infrastructure. Adams comments: "We are looking to support disadvantaged groups and areas of
high unemployment and poverty. We also work on projects that provide childcare and the support of local communities. As a lawyer my role is to make things happen legally; to support and to help to deliver the activities the LDA is involved in."

The body is one of nine regional development agencies that were set up nearly a decade ago to promote new business, reclaim unused land and create new jobs. Projects range from specific community-focused activities such as providing training to refugees, to large-scale undertakings like Beam Reach – 340 acres of land around the Thames Gateway which constitutes one of the largest redevelopment projects ever undertaken in the UK.

"We are working with the Olympic Development Agency to make sure all the projects that are put in place are co-ordinated," says Adams. "We are looking beyond 2012; at putting in place a legacy master framework. It is very exciting – more exciting than the work I was doing at NATS."

The appointment of a legal head from a commercial body like NATS, outside the Greater London Authority's (GLA's) family of entities, was something of a change after a series of appointments handed senior positions to lawyers already in the group. When former GLA legal chief Howard Carter took on the top legal role at Transport for London, Stober moved into his role at the GLA. Despite role-swapping among the GLA group's most senior lawyers, and a reinvigorated drive on the part of Mayor of London Ken Livingstone to greater convergence between the different bodies in the group, Adams says that predictions that the GLA will form a 'super-panel' are wide of the mark.

"Convergence is an initiative of the Mayor's," she says. "We have to work out where we can operate convergence and I see that it can happen with trainees and secondments. However, the super-panel is a myth. We apply common sense and jointly instruct on certain matters but have to have very separate panels because we are all independent bodies."

Despite having practised as a litigator at Allen & Overy, Adams does not hold much truck with big-name law firms, preferring to turn to smaller outfits where she can be sure she will be regarded as an important client. "I like to be the preferred client. People like working with me then because I am important to them. I do not do brands – I do people. I look at individuals."

The body currently turns to a stable of 18 law firms, including national giants Eversheds and DLA Piper as well as Stephenson Harwood, Bircham Dyson Bell and Macfarlanes, who will all be competing for places on the revamped roster, which Adams says she hopes to cut down to just five, opening up some places to new firms.

"I do not like beauty parades, as I tend to select firms who have appeared on the other side of me," she explains. "They are not selling to me and you can easily see how people operate. Chemistry is very important; you have to work with people you like.

"I have my own business model. I turn to a large firm which is capable of doing huge deals, then a mid-tier firm which pitches at a level below but would be capable of stepping up to the mark. I also have a local firm where I will get the attention of a partner."

"I have a 'you make me look good, I make you look good' philosophy – with a smaller panel, I can slash legal spend and help the firms by increasing volume of work."

While Adams' business sense has seen her come to the attention of headhunters and establish a name in public sector circles, she is in no hurry to share in the fame that her employer enjoys.

Given the publicity that has surrounded Livingstone and Tory candidate Boris Johnson as they vie for pole position in the current build-up to the mayoral elections, it is no surprise that the LDA has become such a regular feature in national headlines. The body was recently caught up in a row over cronyism after The Evening Standard published excerpts from 'improper' emails sent from one of the mayor's chief aides to a woman involved in two organisations given grants by the LDA.

While she is determined that the LDA's legal team becomes the focus of positive attention, Adams is not looking to boost her own profile.

"I like to think I have a straightforward style but I do aim high," she says. "I want to have an award-winning team here in the next two to three years."

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