South West Firm Wins Business
A new partnership between the public sector and the law sector has been heralded as a pioneering scheme by The Law Society and will involve law firms and councils from the South West.
The partnership involves eighteen local authorities from across the South of England who have chosen a panel of law firms to support them over the next three or four years.
The nine law firms, including Foot Anstey with offices in Taunton, Exeter and Plymouth, were selected from over 100 who originally expressed an interest. These nine firms will support the in-house legal teams at each of the authorities.
The announcement of the appointments were made in Devizes by Fiona Woolf, Law Society who said
”In-house legal departments provide a great deal of expertise to local authorities, but inevitably there will be cases that demand additional and specialist assistance. These legal departments have demonstrated that by working together they can save time and reduce costs. Solicitors are used to competing to provide services and welcome procurement processes that are efficient and transparent. I applaud this initiative and hope it will create a benchmark for other local authorities to follow.”
All the member authorities put value for money as a top priority when sourcing legal work externally. By procuring these services in partnership, they save duplication of expense, benefiting local tax payers.
Robin Brown partner in Foot Anstey one of the successful firms said “We are delighted to have been appointed in each of the nine specialist fields for which we applied, including employment, planning, commercial, litigation, property, housing, highways and specialist governance issues. Our public sector team at Foot Anstey is committed to working in partnership with all of our local authority clients.”
The 18 participating authorities are as follows:
- Aylesbury Vale District Council
- Bournemouth Borough Council
- Christchurch Borough Council
- Dorset County Council
- East Dorset District Council
- Kennet District Council
- North Dorset District Council
- Poole Borough Council
- Salisbury District Council
- Swindon Borough Council
- Test Valley District Council
- West Dorset District Council
- Weymouth and Portland Borough Council
- Wiltshire County Council
- Wiltshire Police Authority
- Winchester City Council
- Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead
- Wycombe District Council
The law firms selected are as follows:
- Browne Jacobsen
- Davitt Jones Bould
- Foot Anstey
- Michelmores
- Moore & Blatch
- Paris Smith & Randall
- Sternberg Reed Taylor & Gill
- Veale Wasborough
- Weightmans
Published 19/09/2006
