Sixteen firms including Eversheds, Pinsent Masons and Kennedys have won spots on the first panel of advisers assembled by the London Boroughs Legal Alliance (LBLA).

The firms will be appointed for three years to provide legal services to six London boroughs – Camden, Harrow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hillingdon and Hounslow London Borough Councils and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea – which have clubbed together to pool their legal services in a bid to reduce legal costs.

Other firms to have been appointed include Ashfords, Bevan Brittan, Browne Jacobson, Creightons, Devonshires, Dickinson Dees, EMW Picton Howell, Geldards, Michelmores, Moon Beever, Sharpe Pritchard, TLT and Weightmans.

The firms will cover a variety of legal work including commercial, contracts, procurement and outsourcing, housing, PPP and PFI, property, planning, regeneration and construction litigation.

Harrow director of legal and governance services Hugh Peart commented: "Local authorities face hundreds of different legal issues every year, ranging from appeals over parking tickets to highly complex land deals."

He added: "We need the best advice available in often specialised fields, but equally we have a duty to get the best value we can for council tax payers. I am confident the LBLA will do just that, and it will prove an innovation that other town halls across the country will want to copy."

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