British Legal Awards GC of the Year 2012 Geoff Wild has transformed Kent County Council's legal department into a profit-generating business in its own right, and is now preparing to take the model nationwide, as Charlotte Edmond reports

Given that Geoff Wild won the general counsel of the year award at the 2012 British Legal Awards, it is perhaps ironic that his role more accurately reflects that of a managing partner at a small law firm than any in-house position.

As head of Kent County Council's legal function, he has taken the job of local government lawyer in a whole new direction, pioneering a structure that makes his 125-lawyer strong legal team as distinct from the council as possible, while still sitting within the local authority's Maidstone headquarters.

Since taking over the legal function in 2006, Wild has transformed Kent's legal arm into a business in its own right, growing the team by 400%, reclaiming the vast majority of the then £5m or so external legal spend, and – most notably – selling the team's expertise to some 300 other public sector bodies. The result has been turnover of between £11m-£12m and a net profit for the division of £2.5m last year. 

"There is a different mindset to being an in-house lawyer from being a private sector lawyer," says Wild. "In the private sector, you very much eat what you kill and, if you don't kill you don't eat, so therefore you sharpen your claws and your instincts become that much more refined. 

"In-house lawyers tend to be almost the opposite – zoo animals, if you like. There is feeding twice a day, they get their food and their water and pad around the paddock a little bit. But there is not that same appetite – not that same keenness and desire to perform well; to deliver customer satisfaction; to reduce costs; to improve reputation; to promote their services; their products and themselves.

"They can become lazy and flaccid, and the clients consequently don't get such a good service. They get what the lawyers choose to give them in the time frame that suits them. And that is why in-house lawyers and local government lawyers in the past have gained something of a poor reputation. But in Kent, we work differently – we don't get our food given to us twice a day; we have to go out and earn it." 

Building blocks

In an era of across-the-board council cuts, Wild's strategy certainly seems to be paying off. Unlike most in-house teams, Kent's department is not given an annual budget, but instead has a profit target to hit, meaning the team is not seen as a cost to the council. 

How they go about hitting that target is up to Wild, and rather than having to lay off staff as cost savings take hold, Wild is now looking at which new areas of business the legal team can target to return greater profit.

"All our lawyers know there is no work on a plate here and they have to justify themselves, which is a complete anathema in the sector as a whole. Most in-house legal teams receive a set budget, so they think 'Great, I have got that until April next year. I can do pretty much what I want, provided I come in on budget. Nobody is going to be measuring the quality of what I produce. They are just going to be checking I hit the bottom line on the budget. If I go over that then I am in trouble, and if I come under that then I am no better off because they will probably take it off me next year.' They have no incentive to become more efficient, to become leaner, quicker, smarter. 

"In Kent, we have zero budget and so, we don't know how much money we are going to earn each year. We have no tied clients; no guarantee of work. But I know I have got 125 lawyers who need paying and all my other outgoings. Plus I have to return a profit."

Wild pays market rates for the legal team's office space, and all utilities are also above the line: when competing for work externally, Wild is keen to be seen as operating on a level playing field as his competitors, with no suggestion that contracts were won because the department is in some way subsidised.

Currently, around 20% of the team's work is done on external matters, although as Wild comes under pressure to increase profits year-on-year, he is looking to increase the balance so more like 40% is external. Work carried out for the council is charged at around £60 per hour, whereas external work is charged at £90 per hour. 

Whereas in the past growth has been achieved by increasing the size of the team, the focus is now – somewhat counter-intuitively – on decreasing the amount of work done internally to alter the ratio.

"We want to increase the level of work we do externally, but we are also concentrating on reducing our internal work. That means educating our clients within the council to do more work themselves.

"It goes against the grain of some of our lawyers who are used to trying to get as much work in as possible because now we are telling them 'No, you have got to really squeeze the supply line on the internal side' because by doing that, we can again reduce the council's spend at a time when its budgets are being severely cut by Government."

But of course, the type of work Wild's team is doing for the council has changed, too: gone are the major capital projects, the big-ticket regenerations and new builds because funding has dried up. The shift in work has prompted a recruitment drive to bring in more employment and litigation expertise as the council, contractors and suppliers alike seek to recoup money in an environment where every penny counts. 

Creating a team

Around 40% of Kent's legal team are ex-private sector lawyers and over half are female. There is also an unusually large proportion of staff coming to law late in life following careers as doctors and engineers, for example.

And while salaries are still governed by the council's pay scale and do not match the private sector, Wild argues that the big enticement for many is the quality and variety of work, as well as a working environment that is surprisingly similar to the law firms many have come from – albeit with more favourable working hours, and generous public sector leave and pensions packages.

Now the team is established, Wild is set to start training his own lawyers, with plans to start taking on trainees later this year, as well as hiring paralegals and legal executives to boost resources in particular areas such as contracts, commercial and procurement work.

He is working with a number of universities and higher education establishments in Kent to offer graduate placements and apprenticeships, as well as full-scale training contracts.

Wild himself did his training at the Greater London Council as one of 20 articled clerks at a time when the organisation was run by Ken Livingstone. Although the days are now gone when councils offering training contracts was commonplace, Wild is keen to take the opportunity to use lower-cost lawyers for some of the volume or low-level work.

He comments: "We are keen to take them on because we get well-educated lawyers at incredibly low prices. For every post, we might get two – maybe even three or four – hundred applications, so we can afford to take our pick of the crop. Even if they only stay for short time, we will have the benefit of having work done at a level which at the moment is undertaken by over-qualified staff. 

"We want to shift the staffing structure to reduce cost but retain quality, as well as offer these opportunities to new people entering the profession."

Widening reach

In addition to growing his own team, Wild is also turning his focus to expanding the legal team's existing relationship with Geldards. Working alongside the Midlands and Wales-based firm's managing partner David Williams, the pair established Law:Public in 2010, offering local authorities legal services support from a base rate of £90 up to an average headline rate of £150 an hour. South Derbyshire, for example, effectively totally relies on Law:Public's services rather than supporting its own legal team.

Wild is currently in discussions with a number of other large local authorities about potentially joining the Law:Public group to expand its geographical reach. 

As he explains: "A lot of authorities have expressed an interest, but not all of them are suited to joining – maybe one or two are. If we can set up a network – for example, one in Yorkshire, one in Lancashire, one in the West Midlands, etc – you can very quickly see how we can have strong geographical coverage, with Geldards forming the hub in the centre of the wheel."

Kent Council has just taken on a greater responsibility for public health, so another key area of expansion for the legal team is likely to be into the health sector, where Wild hopes to be able to provide legal services more cheaply than local health authorities currently receive from their external law firms.

Further expansion could also be on the cards, as Wild mulls the options available to him as the market expands through the availability of alternative business structures under the Legal Services Act. 

Although the Solicitors Regulation Authority places restrictions on the services in-house lawyers are able to provide, the creation of a separate vehicle – either wholly-owned by Kent or in association with another law firm or non-legal entity – is something Wild is considering.

Kent may also start providing white-label legal services if ongoing discussions with a number of firms pay off.

Poster boy

Wild has certainly caught the attention of the local government community. He has been referred to as "predatory" in the past, and admits he has encountered a certain apprehension among interviewees concerned they will be treated like "battery hens", worried about moving away from the nine-to-five culture which is still found in some other local government roles.

But this isn't curtailing Wild's plans: he is keen for other local authorities to follow suit and has a "vision" to set up regional hubs, such as a franchising operation, with a series of autonomous hubs servicing all of the legal needs of a region.

"One thing I am really passionate about is setting up regional hubs," Wild says, "Kent is not untypical: it has a county council; 12 district councils; it has got police, fire, health, universities, probation – in other words, several layers of public bodies all of whom get their legal services from different providers in different ways. Most have their own individual legal teams with greater or lesser degrees of efficiency.  

"All they need is a single legal team servicing the whole of the sector – the efficiencies gained from pooling resources and getting rid of overheads would be vast. In Kent alone, about £20m-£25m is spent by the public sector on legal services and by thoughtful pooling of resources you can make a huge dent in that.  

"Then if you can replicate that across the UK – maybe having half a dozen of these regional hubs – can you imagine the savings and the improvement in quality of service? 

"The difficulty in creating such collaborative joint ventures is often artificial, historical divides that have built up between organisations over the years and which prevent what you and I see as the blindingly obvious benefits of joint working."

And while sceptics in the traditionally conservative legal profession are inevitable, Wild has had numerous calls from other regions interested in his work, as they wake up to the reality that their model has to change as cuts are driven through. 

"Judging by the number of calls I get from other councils, they are very quickly waking up to the fact they have got to change. It is a lot later in the day than we were here in Kent. But because of the financial constraints – and it is nothing else other than that – many are looking at alternative ways of doing things. 

"Personally, it's a bit late – they should have acted sooner. This sort of transformation doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time to redesign it, to re-educate and you have got to allow yourself at least three years before you see a positive impact and return on investment. But if they have been given that freedom and opportunity to do what I did, I say go for it – just do it."

And while more Kent-like models would mean more competition for Wild, it would seem there is no shortage of mouths to feed.

GEOFF WILD: CAREER TIMELINE

Aug 1984-Nov 1985 Articled clerk, Greater London Council

Nov 1985-May 1988 Assistant solicitor, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council

May 1988-Aug 1989 Senior solicitor, London Borough of Wandsworth

Aug 1989-May 1997 Senior solicitor, Kent County Council

May 1997-Apr 1998 Head of legal services, Kent County Council

Apr 1998-Mar 2006 County secretary, Kent County Council

Apr 2006-present Director of governance and law, Kent County Council