Clarke Willmott latest firm to embrace outsourcing
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Clarke Willmott is to pilot an outsourcing programme in its Birmingham office with the aim of rolling it out across all its UK offices.
David Sedgwick
The firm will send its typing work to South Africa, where it will be done by outsourcing company Exigent. In the UK, Clarke Willmott will implement a secretarial training scheme to enable the position to encompass a broader range of skills.
Managing partner David Sedgwick said the firm had made a number of secretaries redundant in recent months and consequently “the secretaries we’ve got are very good”.
“We want to improve their skills and make them more aligned with the fee earners,” Sedgwick explained. “There’ll be no more secretarial redundancies.”
The secretarial development programme will involve a series of training modules that will focus on financial administration, events, marketing and business development initiatives.
Clarke Willmott partners will not be forced to use the outsourcing service but, said Sedgwick, “ultimately we think everyone will take it up”.
Initially it will be used in Birmingham, but, if successful, it will be rolled out to the firm’s bases in Bristol, Southampton, Taunton and London.
Sedgwick said it would be at least a year before the firm can assess how much money it had saved from the outsourcing, but added that it was not chiefly a cost-saving exercise.
The news comes after Eversheds did a similar pilot, which has resulted in the firm outsourcing secretarial work from across its UK network (10 September 2009).
Earlier this year Pinsent Masons became the first firm to outsource legal work, sending some litigation work to qualified lawyers working for Exigent in South Africa (22 June 2009).
The Lawyer revealed on Monday that Slaughter and May is in talks to outsource low legal work, including document review and due diligence (5 October 2009).
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Readers' comments (14)
Anonymous | 6-Oct-2009 11:23 am
just get rid of partners that do not work (as anybody know!) and let the law firm be managed by associates!
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Leslie | 6-Oct-2009 2:37 pm
"just get rid of partners that do not work (as anybody know!) and let the law firm be managed by associates!"
Hopefully the partners can string a proper sentence together. Same can't be said for yourself.
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Anonymous | 6-Oct-2009 5:54 pm
I am amazed that so many firms are heading overseas for this service. We tried the South African option and were let down on quality and timeliness of document return. We now use a UK based provider who is not only cheaper but far superior in the reliability of their service.
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Anonymous | 7-Oct-2009 10:04 am
Guess there is more than one SA provider then.
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ME | 7-Oct-2009 11:47 am
Managing partner David Sedgwick said the firm had made a number of secretaries redundant in recent months and consequently “the secretaries we’ve got are very good”.
Is it me or does this infer that the redundant ones were bad?
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Anonymous | 7-Oct-2009 12:21 pm
Guess I'll have to go abroad to get a job at this rate!
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It started with the Tower of Babel.. | 7-Oct-2009 2:47 pm
CPA Global and others will now rake in the work. How nucleated can a law firm become?
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Anonymous | 7-Oct-2009 3:52 pm
lets be realistic, many law firms haven't prepared for a reduction in demand many had assumed that fees and prices would go up every year...not the employees fault just a fact of life
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Anonymous | 8-Oct-2009 12:08 pm
I wonder what CW's marketing department are making of this news?
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Anonymous | 9-Oct-2009 10:10 pm
These out sourcing projects will not work that long...a flash in the pan, it will end up with inconsistency in work, the lawyers dislike some of the work going to the typing pool let alone across seas! This applies for sec and para work.... they may think it is cost effective but it will not be, law firms are there to make money, this is their main focus ... however the results will prove in the long term ineffective, ten years or so there was a big deal over the dictation computers that type as you talk..that never took off, not suprising as most audio secs know how often bad dictation is made. As for paras..with the amont of interviews and cvs reviewed for the most basic of tasks, I just can not see this being a real threat to the para market... lets see what happens!
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