International law firm Eversheds today announced that it is to pilot an innovative joint venture with its South African office to provide outsourced legal services to clients. The six month pilot will see a range of basic scope and commoditised legal work for the firms international client accounts completed in South Africa.
Commenting on the move, Bryan Hughes, Eversheds chief executive said:
"The legal sector is in the eye of a perfect storm - we have been subjected to the most difficult trading conditions that any of us have ever faced leading to huge downward pressure on pricing. These pressures are only going to be compounded by anticipated deregulation in the wake of the Clementi reforms and our research tells us that fee levels are not going to return to those generated in previous years. Consequently, those firms that are going to survive, let alone thrive, are those that face up to the reality of the seismic change facing our sector and transform the manner in which legal services are delivered.
"We see the market pressures and regulatory changes as offering a progressive firm like ours, huge opportunities for the future. The price and budgetary squeeze resulting from the credit crunch has opened up considerable opportunities for Eversheds to take more strategic legal work from our competitors, one of our stated strategic objectives. However at the same time, we have the skill set to protect and expand the increasing demand for commoditised services, such as contract review and enforcement actions. The biggest complaint from general counsel is that law firms will not embrace change. That's not Eversheds' ethos."
The setting up of the joint venture in South Africa is an extension of the firms 'networked law' approach in the UK which longstanding clients of the firm are already familiar with. Eversheds uses its network of offices to move work from higher cost centres to lower cost centres giving clients the benefit of a high quality service but delivered cost effectively.
"If your strategy to deal with market forces is simply to reduce prices, that strategy is unsustainable, pressure on the margins will inevitably lead to a decline in quality." says Graham Richardson, head of the firms Legal Systems Group who is leading the South African joint venture project. "That's not what we're about as a firm.
"For many years, we have been looking at ways of delivering traditional legal work in innovative ways, delivering to the perennial client challenge of producing a quality offering for less. We have thought long and hard about our strategy to address the rapid changes in the market place and have a number of options in place. Some clients work with our dedicated business process re-engineering team to analyse and improve delivery methods in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency and quality, both within Eversheds and within the client's own operation. Whilst historically most law firms decided to off load or re-brand their volume operations, we made the strategic decision to retain ours, which gives us a unique skill set in process and systems management giving us substantial experience of commoditising and breaking down legal work in to a process, thereby ensuring work is done faster, better and more cost-effectively. We also have the additional option to offshore work to third parties such as Williams Lea delivering the solution that best fits the clients need. Our client base is increasingly global and our clients are unconcerned as to whether the work is done in South Africa, Birmingham or India, as long as it's done cost-effectively and efficiently, and the quality is guaranteed by the Eversheds brand ."
Eversheds has a full-time innovation group, led by Graham Richardson, which is responsible for driving innovation across the firms practice areas and finding new ways of delivering legal services to provide clients with increased value. Two of the product lines that the group is currently looking at include, large scale diligence and volume planning agreements. The group also has a remit to develop new products and to find new ways to deliver work in areas which the firm had either previously been priced out of or been taken in-house.
"Staying focussed on what the client wants is also about staying ahead of the market" says Bryan Hughes. "Finding innovative ways of delivering legal work will provide our people with challenging and sustainable work of increasing complexity whilst allowing us to defend our position from new entrants in to the market. Law is our business, we know it inside out. We know how to deliver quality and value better than anyone".
"The fact that the legal world is changing is a hard message for many in the sector to hear. The modern law firm today looks drastically different from the law firm of two, let alone ten years ago. As a firm, over the last eighteen months we have made a series of changes by way of response to the revolution taking place in the industry, but we know by talking to our clients, that lasting change in the profession is here to stay and the need to adapt and change will be a constant refrain. Our South African joint venture pilot is just one of the strategies that we are deploying in order to maintain our competitive advantage."
Commenting on the move, Bryan Hughes, Eversheds chief executive said:
"The legal sector is in the eye of a perfect storm - we have been subjected to the most difficult trading conditions that any of us have ever faced leading to huge downward pressure on pricing. These pressures are only going to be compounded by anticipated deregulation in the wake of the Clementi reforms and our research tells us that fee levels are not going to return to those generated in previous years. Consequently, those firms that are going to survive, let alone thrive, are those that face up to the reality of the seismic change facing our sector and transform the manner in which legal services are delivered.
"We see the market pressures and regulatory changes as offering a progressive firm like ours, huge opportunities for the future. The price and budgetary squeeze resulting from the credit crunch has opened up considerable opportunities for Eversheds to take more strategic legal work from our competitors, one of our stated strategic objectives. However at the same time, we have the skill set to protect and expand the increasing demand for commoditised services, such as contract review and enforcement actions. The biggest complaint from general counsel is that law firms will not embrace change. That's not Eversheds' ethos."
The setting up of the joint venture in South Africa is an extension of the firms 'networked law' approach in the UK which longstanding clients of the firm are already familiar with. Eversheds uses its network of offices to move work from higher cost centres to lower cost centres giving clients the benefit of a high quality service but delivered cost effectively.
"If your strategy to deal with market forces is simply to reduce prices, that strategy is unsustainable, pressure on the margins will inevitably lead to a decline in quality." says Graham Richardson, head of the firms Legal Systems Group who is leading the South African joint venture project. "That's not what we're about as a firm.
"For many years, we have been looking at ways of delivering traditional legal work in innovative ways, delivering to the perennial client challenge of producing a quality offering for less. We have thought long and hard about our strategy to address the rapid changes in the market place and have a number of options in place. Some clients work with our dedicated business process re-engineering team to analyse and improve delivery methods in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency and quality, both within Eversheds and within the client's own operation. Whilst historically most law firms decided to off load or re-brand their volume operations, we made the strategic decision to retain ours, which gives us a unique skill set in process and systems management giving us substantial experience of commoditising and breaking down legal work in to a process, thereby ensuring work is done faster, better and more cost-effectively. We also have the additional option to offshore work to third parties such as Williams Lea delivering the solution that best fits the clients need. Our client base is increasingly global and our clients are unconcerned as to whether the work is done in South Africa, Birmingham or India, as long as it's done cost-effectively and efficiently, and the quality is guaranteed by the Eversheds brand ."
Eversheds has a full-time innovation group, led by Graham Richardson, which is responsible for driving innovation across the firms practice areas and finding new ways of delivering legal services to provide clients with increased value. Two of the product lines that the group is currently looking at include, large scale diligence and volume planning agreements. The group also has a remit to develop new products and to find new ways to deliver work in areas which the firm had either previously been priced out of or been taken in-house.
"Staying focussed on what the client wants is also about staying ahead of the market" says Bryan Hughes. "Finding innovative ways of delivering legal work will provide our people with challenging and sustainable work of increasing complexity whilst allowing us to defend our position from new entrants in to the market. Law is our business, we know it inside out. We know how to deliver quality and value better than anyone".
"The fact that the legal world is changing is a hard message for many in the sector to hear. The modern law firm today looks drastically different from the law firm of two, let alone ten years ago. As a firm, over the last eighteen months we have made a series of changes by way of response to the revolution taking place in the industry, but we know by talking to our clients, that lasting change in the profession is here to stay and the need to adapt and change will be a constant refrain. Our South African joint venture pilot is just one of the strategies that we are deploying in order to maintain our competitive advantage."
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