DWF launches contract lawyer, support centre and consulting offerings
Suite of services form a new 'integrated delivery model' at the firm that also includes document automation package
June 19, 2015 at 07:34 AM
3 minute read
DWF has launched a low-cost legal support centre, a contract lawyer offering and a consulting service as part of a new "integrated delivery model" at the firm.
The new suite of services will be overseen by former Addleshaw Goddard client delivery team head Andrew Chamberlain (pictured), who joined DWF last year.
The firm's support centre will be based in Manchester and staffed by a team of 25-30 paralegals and other specialist legal advisers. It will focus on process-driven or standardised legal activities.
The office will house a combination of existing DWF staff and new recruits and will be managed by development director Jonathan Patterson.
"There will be areas of work where we have paralegal teams with qualified people managing them," said Chamberlain. "It's not just a paralegal model but will be driven by how best to do centralised and standardised work. If we need people other than paralegals then we will look at that."
The firm's contract lawyer business will be called DWF Resource. Chamberlain told Legal Week that the number of project lawyers who had signed up was "in the 10s, not 100s" at this stage.
DWF Consultancy, meanwhile, will offer "operational insight to help clients best manage their in-house resource and legal supplier relationships".
The development of the new services has been spearheaded by the firm's service delivery executive – a body that includes Patterson, the firm's chief technology officer, and Chamberlain, who leads the committee.
The launch of the three initiatives simultaneously, along with a new document automation software for in-house lawyers called DWF Draft, is part of wider effort to establish "integrated delivery models and services" at the firm.
"The launch of just one of these wouldn't really cut it," said Chamberlain. "It's all well and good to have all these discrete offerings but sometimes there a sense that people are just ticking the box doing that. Bringing it all together in a joined up way; there's one or two firms doing that but not many."
He added that DWF Consultancy was already working on a project with a "well-known global business".
He said: "There's a gap in the consulting market and people are right to get into it. We law firms bring a real understanding of the market, unlike traditional consultancies."
Chamberlain did not disclose any revenue or headcount targets for the consultancy venture.
He also said the number of flexible staff, such as secondees, that the firm received requests for each year was "well into three figures" and that many of these placements would now be filled through the firm's DWF Resource arm.
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