Barclays has completed its final formal legal panel review, as the bank shifts to a new system it describes as "active relationship management".

The new line-up will run for three years, although advisers will now be subject to an ongoing assessment process, giving the bank more flexibility to manage the size and composition of the panel, with firms added and removed on an ad hoc basis.

The process has seen the panel trimmed from about 140 firms to 100, while the bank has also cut its 'core specialist firm' tier from the panel, which will now consist of two tiers of panel firms and specialist firms – with a roughly 20/80 split.

Firms understood to have won places on the panel include Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Dentons, Simmons & Simmons, Norton Rose Fulbright, Baker McKenzie, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Taylor Wessing and Ashurst.

One of the key priorities set out by the bank in the panel review was the reduction of the proportion of work carried out on hourly rates, as well as an increase in the use of what the bank describes as "effective fee arrangements".

Barclays head of external engagement Stephanie Hamon told Legal Week that its panel firms currently bill an average of about 40% of work on an hourly basis, which she hopes to see drop to 15%.

Hamon said: "Part of our reasoning is internal – we need to better manage our business function, including more accurate budgeting and forecasting. When you're being billed on an hourly rate, it's harder to tell your CFO your firms are being efficient."

The 15% figure is aspirational but the bank will continue to assess, on a quarterly basis, how much firms are billing hourly.

Barclays also prioritised collaboration and innovation as key expectations, with Hamon explaining the bank wants to see firms work together more.

"We are not willing to pay a lot of money for firms just to throw bodies at a piece of work. We want firms to think about how they can deliver differently – could they partner with a third party, use AI, use lawyers in a lower-cost location? Value and price are two different things.

"We want to see collaboration every single time a firm is given a piece of work – if a firm knows another firm would be better at it and could help them with something, then we want them to tell us that and see those firms work together."

All firms declined to comment.