BLP holds on to Thames Water legal work until 2018
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP)has held on to its £5m a year contract with Thames Water for another four years, after the water company re-tendered the contract. BLP sealed the initial deal in 2010, with Thames Water transferring the bulk of its in-house legal team over to the City law firm in a contract worth around £5m a year for five years. The contract has now been extended until 2018 and has been agreed at a similar rate. There are now 20 people working in the legal team, which is based in Thames Waters' Reading head office but employed by BLP. This includes 15 lawyers who work together with BLP's London office.
March 17, 2014 at 10:59 AM
3 minute read
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has held on to its £5m a year contract with Thames Water for another four years, after the water company re-tendered the contract.
BLP sealed the initial deal in 2010, with Thames Water transferring the majority of its in-house legal team over to the City law firm in a contract worth around £5m a year for five years.
The contract has now been extended until 2018 and has been agreed at a similar rate. There are now 20 people working in the legal team, which is based in Thames Waters' Reading head office but employed by BLP. This includes 15 lawyers who work together with BLP's London office.
The work is handled through the managed legal services (MLS) division at BLP which is now part of the firm's new integrated service model for clients.
The new service model also sees the firm developing its Lawyers On Demand (LOD) business to include virtual transaction teams, planning to use third parties to cut costs for clients and the expansion of its internal legal process improvement team to analyse and improve processes and workflows for clients. In addition BLP is opening a low cost legal centre in Manchester in the summer.
BLP Partner, John Bennett (pictured) who spearheaded the managed legal services arrangement with Thames Water's legal team, said: "We are absolutely delighted and it is a credit to the team for making it an easy decision for Thames Water to make."
Bennett added that the firm is open to offering new clients the integrated model.
Joel Hanson, GC at Thames Water, said: "We are delighted to build on the successes of our partnership with BLP. By making our lives simpler, my team will continue to spend more time on strategic business issues."
Last January, Legal Week reported a proposed deal between Yorkshire Water and BLP's MLS arm had been abandoned, after talks fell through. Yorkshire Water confirmed that it was not pursuing a deal with MLS, with its legal team continuing to operate within the company.
MLS, which was launched by BLP in 2010, sees the law firm take over the in-house legal capability of a company for a fixed price, bringing the existing in-house team under its employment. The Thames Water deal is currently MLS's only mandate.
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