Addleshaws vows: no more drudge work for associates
Routine work to be sent to new paralegal centre; associates to ramp up client-facing skills
Paul Devitt
Addleshaw Goddard is rolling out a firmwide process of unbundling its chargeable work in a bid to free associates from routine assignments and develop their relationship-building skills.
The move is the latest in a series of ventures by law firms to pass cost savings on to clients, but Addleshaws is one of the first practices to explicitly link disaggregation of legal work to the training and development of its lawyers.
Commoditised work will be sent to a transaction services centre in Manchester, which has been running on a pilot basis with five paralegals since November. The firm envisages a team of 20 fee-earners by next month, eventually rising to at least 60.
E-disclosure has been a significant part of the work, along with some elements of due diligence, but the firm is aiming to boost the amount of work referred internally to the Manchester centre.
Addleshaws employment partner Andrew Chamberlain, who has led on the project, said: “We’re starting to deconstruct work on litigation and we’re also mapping the typical process of an M&A transaction and identifying who needs to do what.”
Addleshaws managing partner Paul Devitt said: “We’ve looked significantly at what’s within any mandate and what are the elements of any package.
“What we’ve done when talking about this approach to clients is explain how we deliver services differently and show them what it might have cost on a traditional hourly rate model, then collaborate with them to scope it properly and produce a model where pricing is task-based.
“A lot of this has come from the associates who’ve been driving things. They can see where the efficiencies can happen as they’re at the sharp end all the time.
“With training, you have to ask, ’Are we training our people up to be lawyers?’. With this project we can offer a fuller training contract - yes, you need to know how to do a due diligence exercise, but you don’t need to do 500 of them to know how to do it.
“It will allow associates to do more relationship-building with clients and get to understand their business.”
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Readers' comments (18)
Anonymous | 7-Feb-2011 4:22 pm
Because no doubt they realise that, with their magic circle-like charge out rates, they are no longer able to turn a profit without outsourcing the work at a cheaper rate. I would bet they do not pass on that saving to the client. What would be the benefit of outsourcing otherwise? As for associate benefit - really? What benefit. A bit of due diligence - boring but are they really saying they are so overrun with work that they cannot cope without sending it out to a third party? Better to keep associates busy than out of a job. Smacks of disguising the obvious...outsourcing = greater profit for the partners = associate cuts
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Rural bliss | 7-Feb-2011 5:35 pm
@ London Associate
"Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep"
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Anonymous | 7-Feb-2011 6:16 pm
Basically fire all the associates and replace them with cheap paralegals.
The only hope is that when tuition fees rise to £9,000 per annum, no student will be stupid enough to waste more money on the LPC to become a low paid paralegal.
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EC4 | 8-Feb-2011 3:14 am
@ Rural bliss
So Manchester Station stocks the Readers Digest's special poetry edition, eh?
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Anonymous | 8-Feb-2011 10:29 am
Seems sensible to me. Trainees and juniors are constantly griping that they don't want to do this work, but for someone else (and dare I say the same applies to Herbies and A&O in Belfast) it's perfectly good work and probably more interesting than the local drudgery or unemployment. And clients don't like paying for this stuff because it's not exactly value-added.
So in long term trends it's just another step away from the billable hour and probably a slight trimming over time of trainee numbers but on the scale these guys are talking it doesn't look like many current jobs are at risk.
Does anyone else find it irritating that every change and evolution in the legal industry gets shot down in flames? By people who look for the best value tv or car or whatever - i.e. industries who embraced the same types of evolution years ago. What on earth makes law firms exempt?
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Northern Associate | 8-Feb-2011 10:32 am
I've read the comments and understand the degree of scepticism, however a big part of this initiative is ensuring that trainees get a better training contract. A massive amount of time is spent on producing bibles and due diligence tasks which don't really help with development.
The work isn't being outsourced, just being undertaken by a new department in Manchester and by doing this work in the same place clearly there should be efficiencies that are beneficial to both AG and its clients.
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A Client | 9-Feb-2011 4:58 pm
Only time will tell if this is spin to save associates jumping before they are requested to jump.
Can AG do volume work in this form?
Is partner contact really being replaced by associate contact ? Not some thing I would accept!
Are we about to see a shrinking of the partnership or a reduction in the head count of associates.
Whatever the Bills must drop and the quality of the Advice must go up.
Not sure if this would have happended when Paul & Mark were at the Helm !
Only time will tell
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Anonymous | 9-Feb-2011 8:00 pm
to anonymous 8 Feb 2011 10.29am.....
i take it you are an equity partner? it's pretty obvious given you praise this particular change (relating to juniors) and yet make no mention at all to the most archaic system of them all namely the fat cat equity system. Maybe if that was changed generation Y would see a true purpose and there would be a sustainable business model for employees and clients alike. don't get me wrong some partners do an absolutely excellent job and would do well under any system, but no firms at all dare tackle what really needs tackling namely those there through long service and the old boys/girls network.
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