The government is cutting back the number of go-to-firms its uses for external counsel by almost 40% as it prepares the launch of two new panels worth a total of £410m over four years.
The reduction comes in a bid to ramp up legal service delivery across the public sector.
The existing list comprises 47 law firms including Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May, Ashurst, Simmons & Simmons, DLA Piper and Eversheds, but this will be slashed to a maximum of 28 law firms.
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS), which acts for the Minister for the Cabinet Office, is setting up the two new panels – one for general legal advice services and another to cover finance and highly complex transactions – to supply the central government and associate public bodies external legal counsel.
The general services roster will be worth £320m and will comprise 18 law firms to cover areas such as public law, competition/EU, contracts, construction, corporate, data protection, dispute resolution, employment, environment, IT, insurance, IP, litigation, restructuring/insolvency, tax, and real estate amongst others.
The separate finance panel will be worth £90m which could see a maximum of ten firms appointed. Areas that will be covered include complex finance matters, capital markets, regulation, highly complex transactions, and strategically important transformational change, including major or complex projects, and mergers and acquisitions.
The two panels will be made available to ‘permitted users’, which include all UK ministerial and non-ministerial departments, their associated executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies.
The panel will launch at the end of November and run for four years. The new arrangements will replace the current legal services framework, which went into effect at the start of February 2013 and will expire on 31 January 2017. The existing framework has delivered an average of 25% in savings.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk
The 47 firms which were appointed under the existing arrangement are:
Addleshaw Goddard
Allen & Overy
Arthur Cox
Ashfords
Ashurst
Berrymans Lace Mawer
Berwin Leighton Paisner
Bevan Brittan
Bircham Dyson Bell
Blake Morgan
Bond Dickinson
Bristows
Browne Jacobson
Burges Salmon
Burness Paull & Williamsons
Capsticks Solicitors
CMS Cameron McKenna
Cripps Harries Hall
DAC Beachcroft
Davitt Jones Bould
Dentons UKMEA
DLA Piper UK
Eversheds
Fieldfisher
Foot Anstey
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Gowling WLG (UK)
Hempsons
Herbert Smith Freehills
Keoghs
Maclay Murray & Spens
Marriott Davies Yapp
Mills & Reeve
Nabarro
Parabis Law
Pinsent Masons
Sharpe Pritchard & Co
Shoosmiths
Simmons & Simmons
Slaughter and May
Squire Patton Boggs
Stephenson Harwood
TLT
Trowers & Hamlins
Veale Wasbrough Vizards
Walker Morris
Weightmans
