Canberra

The Australian government has established a panel of more than 60 law firms to compete for more than AUD1 billion, or $680 million, in government legal work during the next five years.

The government on Friday launched the Whole-of-Government Legal Services Panel, which government agencies will be required to use for the bulk of their legal work until 2024.

"The provision of external legal services to the Commonwealth is worth about AUD230 million per year based on spending in 2017-18," attorney general Christian Porter said in a statement.

Practice areas include workplace, industrial relations and compensation; corporate and commercial; public law; and property and environment; along with litigation and legal support.

Global firms Ashurst, King & Wood Mallesons and Norton Rose Fulbright have strong representation across all the practice areas on the panel, as do local firms Clayton Utz, Gadens, Holding Redlich, HWL Ebsworth, Maddocks, Mills Oakley, MinterEllison, Moray & Agnew and Sparke Helmore.

The Big Four's KPMG Law and PricewaterhouseCoopers also made the government panel.

While government agencies will be required to use the panel for the bulk of their external legal services, each agency can engage off-panel providers for up to 10% of its external expenditure and where specific exemptions have been granted by the Attorney General's Department.

Data provided to Law.com by the Attorney General's Department revealed that Clayton Utz won close to AUD35 million worth of federal government legal work – or 10% of the total, and the largest share of any law firm – in 2017-18. Next were Sparke Helmore with almost AUD28 million, Ashurst with AUD21 million, and MinterEllison and King & Wood Mallesons, each with about AUD17 million.

The largest share of the work – 34%, worth AUD118 million – was carried out by the Australian government solicitor. Altogether, the government spent close to AUD350 million on legal services last fiscal year.

The Whole-of-Government Legal Services Panel was recommended by the Attorney General's Department secretary's review of commonwealth legal services, to leverage the government's purchasing power and increase efficiencies for both providers and agencies requiring legal services, the department said in a statement.