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Herbies to send Aussie work to Belfast review centre

19 November 2012 | By James Swift

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Herbert Smith Freehills is preparing a pilot scheme to use the firm’s Belfast document review centre for cases from the legacy Freehills side of its business in Australia.

The firm is planning to launch the pilot in the next two months. Management from legacy Freehills is now understood to be searching for a suitable case in the Asia Pacific region on which to collaborate with the Belfast office, which will handle the document review work. The pilot scheme will give the firm an idea of whether the time differences and any language barriers can be overcome in the long run.

In a statement, Belfast office director Libby Jackson said: “It’s early days. We’re continuing to explore the extent to which our offering in Belfast might be able to support our disputes practice in Australia.”

Pre-merger Herbert Smith launched its Belfast office in 2011 to focus on reviewing and analysing case documents (24 November 2011) and initially shared £3m of public money from Invest Northern Ireland with Allen & Overy – which opened a support function office in the city – to help fund the launch (4 February 2011).

Herbert Smith then got a further £500,000 from Invest Northern Ireland after announcing it would create another 61 jobs in Belfast, in addition to the initial 26 (30 June 2011).

Herbert Smith merged with Freehills on 1 October 2012 (28 June 2012). The combined litigation group is headed by legacy Herbert Smith partner Sonya Leydecker and legacy Freehills partner Damian Grave.

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Readers' comments (15)

  • Ir Ish | 19-Nov-2012 2:25 pm

    Well I for one will be taking my personal injury claim (trip and slip at work if anyone is interested) elsewhere after reading this article. One has to make a stand and talk with one's feet in a situation like this and Herbert Smythe will not be getting my custom on this occasion. Language barriers indeed. I never !

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  • Anonymous | 19-Nov-2012 3:18 pm

    To be fair, if there's going to be any cross border dictation/WP interaction then accents can be a pretty big problem.
    When I worked in NZ and had Aussie WP typing out dicta it was generally full of question marks and mistakes due to differences in pronunciation (and this is between two very similar accents). I'm sure this would be exacerbated by differences in law between Aus/Asia Pacific and N. Ireland (i.e. unfamiliar terms etc).

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  • Parddy O'flannagan'anan | 19-Nov-2012 6:07 pm

    Sum awf dose soo eaasily offendeded arbove needs too getta life, too bee sure. Ma falks were oon Boot A too de Colonies all'd does years awgo. Top awf de mawning toos ya alls.

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  • Anonymous | 20-Nov-2012 8:44 am

    I once worked in a coding room in Australia where one of the coders, a qualified Irish barrister, was one of those strong silent types. It was very difficult to get him involved in a meaningful conversation but I remember people thought well of his coding work.

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  • ExCityLawFirmWorker | 23-Nov-2012 3:23 pm

    Does this mean that another law firm has realised it cannot rely on the gravy train that is low-level document discovery work?

    If so, well done Herbies on moving into the noughties....modernity will catch up with you some time soon...

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