Canadian Lawyer

44 A p r I L 2 0 1 5 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m change that's going on in the legal mar- ket, rather than something that's purely cyclical," says David Morley, worldwide senior partner at Allen & Overy, whose 2014 Chief Legal Officer survey also highlights the expanding role for var- ied services that companies now use to meet their legal needs: contract lawyers, specialized document review services, consultancies, online services, and managed services, among others. "ere is a cyclical element, but we think that the changes are structural and that there are a number of forces that are driving that. ere's the rise in status and importance of the general counsel role within large business, and you now have very sophisticated players as general counsel. And these general counsel are under a lot of cost pressure to either reduce their legal costs or find someone who will. And then there's the deal drought aer the financial crisis, and the rise in competition." Speaking to Canadian Lawyer from Tanzania, where he is involved in an Allen & Overy charity project, he adds: "All of these changes are forcing the legal industry to deliver more for less; clients are demanding it. If you as a law firm are not prepared to deliver it, there are other providers who will." A&O's response has been to set up a legal services centre of some 400 people in Belfast, where rents are less than one sixth of those in London, in an effort to get what Morley describes as "a larger share of the relationship with clients." It's a model that's been copied in Cana- da, with Torys LLP recently opening its own legal services centre in Halifax. Torys' centre currently has four lawyers, led by derivatives and struc- tured products specialist Christopher Fowles, and it will hire more once it's clear where the demand is coming from. "Our clients are under pressure, obviously, in different ways in terms of their legal spend and they are looking to the law firms that partner with them to help them manage that legal spend," L E g A L r E p o rt \ L E g A L p r o C E s s o u t s o u r C I N g law firms are TryinG To play caTchup, and They have opporTuniTies here. buT They are noT invesTed in TechnoloGy and They are noT process focused. DAVID CURRAN, Thomson Reuters The only thing harder than fi nding the right legal document is losing it and trying to quickly fi nd it again. With WestlawNext Canada, the information you fi nd remains found – and organized. Effortlessly drag and drop key cases and documents into folders. Easily highlight and annotate documents as you go. Discover more at westlawnextcanada.com 00227MO-A48602 HELPING YOU TO BE MORE EFFICIENT, EFFECTIVE AND CONFIDENT.

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