Dentons' UK, Ireland & Middle East region launches managed legal services offering with a modern approach for clients

London—Dentons has launched a managed legal services offering for clients which streamlines the end to end delivery of aggregated legal work for a fixed monthly fee. Recognising that in house legal teams are challenged both for time and resources, Dentons has created a modern approach to delivering legal work as an extension of clients' legal teams. Uniquely for managed legal service offerings, the work is delivered by Dentons' professionals rather than a subsidiary.

The managed legal services team is made up of lawyers, legal technologists and data specialists from within Dentons' UK offices. It operates through a proprietary triage model built by experienced partners that measures incoming matters by both risk and complexity, allowing the disaggregation of low to medium complexity work so that it can be delivered in the most efficient and cost effective manner.

Dentons is already supporting longstanding client the John Lewis Partnership by operating as an extension of its in-house legal team and assisting in the allocation of day-to-day work from across different business areas. This has enabled the Partnership to manage legal work volumes more effectively throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in significant cost savings while freeing up the in-house legal team to focus on the strategic goals of the business.

John Lewis Partnership’s General Counsel Hannah Hullah comments, 'Dentons has become a key part of our legal team. They have taken the low and medium complexity Commercial work off our plates and provide us with their expertise on the strategic matters when we need it. Although we could never have predicted it, having Dentons as our legal partner has helped us with the increased demand on legal throughout the pandemic.'

The service is underpinned by technology that helps all General Counsels demonstrate genuine value to their businesses. Robust analysis of data that is generated through the delivery model provides them with insights into the work their legal teams are doing. They can see data on where legal work requests are coming from, trends for example on how suppliers' negotiating positions on liability or cyber breaches have changed over a period of time, as well as analysis on how often a particular legal position has been achieved. This allows them to see how this impacts their businesses' risk and cost profiles and make different decisions as a result.

Dentons' UK, Ireland & Middle East CEO Jeremy Cohen comments, 'By collaborating with our clients to provide legal services at all levels of complexity in a more structured fashion, we are reinventing the delivery of low to medium complexity legal work – some of which can be quite complex, and modernising outdated managed services models. We also recognise that the key challenges for General Counsel are time and resources, so this is a solution that provides them with the two most important things they are looking for: quality assurance and cost predictability.'

Since launching with the John Lewis Partnership, Dentons has signed up additional clients and continues to refine the service and expand it to other sectors and practice areas, working with leading corporate legal team consultant, Leah Cooper.

Leah Cooper comments, 'Working with Hannah Hullah to reshape her team to focus on the strategic goals of the business, we knew we had to find a solution to handle day to day legal work. Dentons was the only firm that could provide high quality law firm service, manage it in a way that enabled the JLP Legal team to be strong business partners and reduce costs and improve efficiency at the same time.'

About Dentons

Dentons is the world's largest law firm, connecting talent to the world's challenges and opportunities in more than 75 countries. Dentons' legal and business solutions benefit from deep roots in our communities and award-winning advancements in client service, including Nextlaw, Dentons’ innovation and strategic advisory services. Dentons' polycentric and purpose-driven approach, commitment to inclusion and diversity, and world-class talent challenge the status quo to advance client and community interests in the New Dynamic. www.dentons.com