Kennedy Cater Legal

The on-line magazine, Public Law Today, newly launched by the team behind Local Government Lawyer features an article by our Head of Public Sector, Helen Edwards. In Getting the Most from Your External Legal Suppliers (click to follow link), Helen outlines some of the ways public sector bodies can get more bang for their bucks

For the second time, Kennedy Cater have backed a survey undertaken by Local Government Lawyer Magazine, which examines the current and future challenges facing local government legal teams.

The Legal Department of the Future Survey has been distributed across the entire local government sector and aims to produce a true picture of how legal departments might respond to the current motivators for change.

The survey aims to identify the main challenges and ascertain how local authority legal departments will look in future. It examines the effect that changes to the structure of local government, the growth of outsourcing and spin-outs, the ongoing growth of shared services and the emergence of external trading models and Alternative Business Structures will have on the future shape of legal departments. It also looks at some of the key day-to-day issues affecting their management – workload, recruitment, training and the use of external advisers.

All participants will receive a copy of the full aggregated results when the survey is complete, providing valuable original benchmarking information.

Participants are also being invited to attend a roundtable session to discuss the results. Helen Edwards, Director of Kennedy Cater’s Public Sector team says, ‘being a part of these round table discussions provides a valuable insight into how public sector legal teams as a whole are responding to the pressures and expectations being increasingly placed upon them. Kennedy Cater’s sponsorship of this survey underlines our commitment to developing models that can closely support the sector in these changing times.’

The analysis of the results will also compare these answers to the earlier management survey sponsored by Kennedy Cater and conducted by Local Government Lawyer in 2013.

The survey can be viewed on the link below.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/legaldeptofthefuture

On Wednesday 20^th May, Kennedy Cater played host to senior figures from Local Government, Housing Associations and the NHS who came together to attend our Spring Seminar, Getting the Most from your External Legal Suppliers. 

Led by Helen Edwards, Head of Kennedy Caters Public Sector team, the Seminar theme resonated well with our current clients and provided those new to our services with a clear guide to Law firm selection and on-going management.

Tim Morel, Co-Founder of Kennedy Cater comments, ‘The opportunity to explain our approach in a way that our guests could translate to their own organisation on a practical level provided for an interesting debate. For us it has always been essential that our clients own the process for themselves as this will ultimately ensure that every piece of work, from a single piece of advice to a full blown tender, will be organised in the most time efficient and cost effective way. This seminar allowed us to explore themes that affect everyone in different ways.’

The event was held in the beautiful surroundings of Church House in Westminster, where the late spring sunshine afforded spectacular views over Westminster Abbey and Deans Yard, as guests enjoyed wine and canapés and an opportunity to mingle after the seminar.

For details of our next Seminar, which is scheduled to take place in September, please email: helen.edwards@kennedycater.com

Kennedy Cater has appointed Helen Edwards as its new Director and Head of Public Sector. She replaces Vivienne Horton, who will remain with the company as a consultant.

Kennedy Cater has been at the forefront of providing specialist advice for both public and private sector organisations in their procurement and management of legal services.  The Public Sector specialises in providing particular support around establishing legal services frameworks, contract management, in-house process and efficiency gains and new business models, including shared services.

 Tim Morel, Founder and Director of Kennedy Cater said,

‘Helen’s in-house background will further enhance our expertise in this sector and give focus to increasing collaboration between our public and private sector teams on projects that require real innovation.’

 Helen has spent 19 years in local authority legal departments, the last 8 as Director of Legal Services in two authorities. Key focuses were to drive efficiencies through the redesign of in-house legal teams, and the establishment of shared legal services in three different authorities. The most recent of these being oneSource, the shared back office support service established by the London Boroughs of Newham and Havering.

Helen will be the lead contact for Kennedy Caters innovative framework services for the London Boroughs Legal Alliance (LBLA) and the Housing Associations Legal Alliance (HALA).

Commenting on her appointment, Helen said:

 “I am delighted to have joined Kennedy Cater. In the difficult economic climate facing our public sector clients, I am excited by the opportunity to use my transformation skills to show them how investing in our services can achieve significant  savings and sustainable quality and efficiency improvements”