legal project management and transaction support
Committing the necessary time to get the best results from legal advisers and other professionals can be a distracting challenge for a company’s management. Misunderstandings and communication difficulties can too easily arise, leading to inefficiencies, delays and the risk of mistakes, particularly if English is not the client’s first language or the instructing managers are unfamiliar with the legal landscape.
Through careful planning, we can facilitate legal projects, whether litigation, corporate transactions or reorganisations, or adapting to changes in regulation or relations with third parties. We help clients understand what is involved in change, looking ahead so that otherwise potentially derailing circumstances are properly addressed and do not lead to failure.
Our help in handling legal projects can reduce the likelihood of undesirable outcomes, not only so far as a particular legal matter or project is concerned, but also for the business and budgets.
Where there is a need for specialist or overseas external legal advice, we help clients to get the best from their lawyers without having to cut corners. Our close understanding of our clients and insight into external law firms helps to ensure that legal services are delivered to the highest professional standards, are relevant and carried out cost effectively by those with the appropriate specialist skills.
Critically, we aim to reduce the time spent by clients’ senior management in dealing with lawyers and other professionals, while also maximising value for legal spending by getting a job done well, on time, within budget and with a minimum of fuss and distraction.
governance
Hand in hand with legal project management is governance and legal oversight. Current trends suggest a greater emphasis on private companies’ governance and personal accountability of directors. Apart from their duties under company law, directors are now responsible for compliance with laws covering such matters as bribery, modern slavery and, of course, data protection. These can have a major impact on prospective and existing relationships with suppliers and customers as well as other stakeholders. In addition, the requirement to obtain and provide information relating to ‘persons having significant control’ over a company is not just a matter of compliance, but a pre-requisite to many aspects of doing business.
It can be only too easy for companies to fall short of best practice when it comes to corporate housekeeping and compliance: it’s an easy, but dangerous, corner to cut, assuming it’s not in a blind spot to begin with.
Weak governance increases risk and, no less important, exposes a company to sanctions for falling afoul of applicable regulation. Growing/growth-driven clients will wish to raise capital or have significant transactions with third parties; or their shareholders will want to implement exit strategies. A good or poor governance track record will influence the attitudes of third party investors or buyers and may have a direct and material effect on deal value and terms or kill a transaction altogether.
We can work alongside a client’s company secretary or act as company secretary ourselves, attend and arrange board meetings, contribute to business decisions, carry out reviews of clients’ procedures and help to establish or develop them and draft applicable documentation.
