Despite the exit of managing attorney Leah Cooper, outsourcing remains high on the agenda of Rio Tinto's legal team as it embarks on a major panel review. Alex Aldridge reports

Leah Cooper's decision in February to quit her job as Rio Tinto managing attorney and EMEA general counsel to take a business development role at legal outsourcing provider CPA Global caused quite a stir. At the time, the outsourcing deal she struck with CPA on behalf of Rio – which since last May has seen the mining giant send out low-level legal tasks to a team of CPA lawyers in India – was less than a year old. And few expected the brains behind – and recognisable face of – the headline-grabbing initiative to jump ship so soon.

Six months on, though, and the disruption caused by Cooper's departure appears but a distant memory, with business apparently very much as usual in the Rio Tinto legal department. Chief counsel for exploration Angela Mullany has added Cooper's managing attorney role to her responsibilities, while general counsel for business development Warren Goodman has taken over the EMEA general counsel position. "It's certainly been busy, but also very enjoyable," says Mullany of the period since April when she assumed her new duties, adding that she has had her evenings and weekends interrupted by urgent messages on her BlackBerry on a number of occasions during that time.

The outsourcing agreement with CPA continues and Mullany says the plan is to take it to the next phase by "refining existing processes" and "identifying new opportunities to maximise cost savings". (When it was initiated, Rio claimed the arrangement would reduce its annual £60m legal bill by 20%.) That is likely to mean increasing the size of the team in India – which works out of a separate 'Rio Tinto room' in CPA's offices in Gurgaon near Delhi – by around a third to approximately 18 lawyers over the coming months.

Mullany, who still has not been to India to see the operations but says a trip over is high on her list of priorities, is also looking to encourage a greater degree of interaction between Rio and CPA lawyers. "We regularly have Rio lawyers passing through and visiting the CPA team in Gurgaon, and we are planning to have two of our CPA lawyers spend a week in our London office in October," she says.

Meanwhile, later in the year Rio is expected to start a review of its external law firm advisers with a view to creating its first-ever formal legal panel. Mullany, whose remit as managing attorney includes overseeing the budget for managing external counsel, will be involved in the process, but it is being led by Goodman and chief counsel for global business services Neville Henwood. Rio's current crop of regular advisers include Linklaters and Herbert Smith, as well as US firms Sullivan & Cromwell, Baker & McKenzie and O'Melveny & Myers, plus Australian duo Allens Arthur Robinson and Blake Dawson, alongside a host of smaller local firms in the multiple jurisdictions in which the company has a presence.

While declining to comment on the review process directly, Mullany says that one of the company's broader aims is to do more of the legal work it generates in-house. Related to this is a planned recruitment drive to boost Rio's lawyer headcount, which is currently around 100. London – where 20 lawyers are currently based out of the firm's Paddington offices, handling mainly corporate matters – is among the locations that the company is looking to strengthen. Mullany will doubtless be keeping her well-worn BlackBerry to hand as she embarks on the next part of Rio's new legal strategy.

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leah-cooper-bigLeah Cooper – life after Rio

"People at Rio Tinto weren't annoyed when I left, absolutely not," reflects former Rio Tinto managing attorney Leah Cooper, speaking six months after her move to join CPA Global as director of legal services outsourcing. "They were surprised, sure, but I continue to have such a great relationship with everyone there."

Cooper (pictured) admits that it has been a big change to go from a legal role to an entirely commercial position, but she says she is "relishing the challenge". Part of that challenge has been to develop a strategy that is seeing CPA target corporates rather than focus only on law firms, while positioning itself at the higher end of the market as a provider of legal service outsourcing, as opposed to legal process outsourcing.

Cooper insists the distinction is more than semantics: "Unlike our competitors, we're a pure-play legal services outsourcer, having moved away from process-driven work," she explains, adding that she will be in a position to announce a number of new multinational clients when she speaks at Legal Week's Corporate Counsel Forum on 14-15 September.