First Law

First Law leads consortium of Councils

Law Society Gazette - Thursday 13th March 2003

A consortium of ten councils in Greater Manchester and two Lancashire unitaries is cutting down its spend on barristers in child care cases by 25% following a link-up with First Law, the legal tendering and audit service.

This initiative - which could in time be rolled out to other areas of law and external solicitors - was the brainchild of Sylvia Roberts, borough solicitor at Tameside Council, who heads the consortium. The consortium decided to introduce standard fees across the councils, with the system managed by an independent third party.

First Law will implement a uniform system of billing, using a standard fee scale for legal work undertaken by external counsel.

The system involves a standard fees claim form, devised by Tameside Council, coupled with detailed explanatory notes covering fee scales, bill narratives and payment arrangements. Counsel will use this form to claim fees in place of the normal fee notes.

The partnership developed after Tameside Council employed First Law in helping appoint external solicitors to carry out tripping claims work - Lancashire firm Forbes and City firm DLA were chosen.

Ms Roberts said: 'During Tameside's initial project with First Law and over a period of 12 months, we reviewed a diverse cross-section of arrangements with counsel. We concluded that by working together, the Greater Manchester councils could achieve savings of 25% on their legal expenditure on external counsel's fees.'

She said the likely saving will be about £250,000 on a total budget of around £1 million for child care work.

Ms Roberts said the savings would come from lower fees and administrative savings on not having to negotiate individual cases with barristers.

First Law was set up by former City solicitor Anthony Armitage in 1999.

The councils involved are: Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, and Wigan councils in Greater Manchester, Blackpool council and Blackburn with Darwen council.