About

Team size: 26

Major legal advisers: Addleshaw Goddard, Dentons, Eversheds Sutherland

Network Rail has attracted attention for ripping up the rule book on legal panel design to try to deliver on a vision for a more dynamic and collaborative relationship with firms.

Dan Kayne, GC for regions at the railway provider, led a panel review process that took the best part of two years to finalise in March last year and little attention to detail has been spared in trying to maximise the benefits to Network Rail.

Addleshaw Goddard, Dentons and Eversheds Sutherland gained spots in a reduced panel and have been allocated their own regional patches across the country, which Kayne says provides guaranteed flow of work for the firms and lets Network Rail compare firms’ performance for similar types of work in different parts of the country.

‘We don’t call it a panel – we call it a partnership. The move is about seeing law firms as service providers. We’re asking firms to lawyer differently and I want to change the perception of lawyers as blockers. There are many lawyers who enable good business decisions,’ says Kayne.

A key performance indicator system has been introduced with financial incentives for law firms to help, among other things, measure the number of cases that are handled on alternative fee arrangements, with the intention of moving work away from the hourly rate. Providing maximum detail in case matter notes is another area firms are encouraged to do well on, while firms have been encouraged to sub-contract legal work if they lack expertise on an issue.

‘Our partnership principles are designed to exceed our customers’ expectations,’ stresses Kayne.

Beginning last April, Network Rail’s new legal partnership will run for five years to allow for the full benefits to be felt and processes tested, and Kayne has suggested there might be more radical changes from 2024.

A partner from a panel firm comments: ‘The legal team was brave and cut down its panel from five law firms to three, which is incredibly difficult for a quasi-public-private company to do given all its internal stakeholders.’

INTERVIEW WITH… Dan Kayne – General counsel (regions)

Why change how you run your panel?

Lawyers are likely to be very different in the next decade because disruption across the industry is giving GCs more choice while societal pressures are demanding a different kind of approach. Great lawyers used to be have been described as ‘T-shaped’, with an emphasis on collaborative as well as technical skills, but the concept of the ‘O-shaped’ lawyer, representing a well-rounded individual, is gaining traction in the market and they are likely to be the next generation of industry leaders.

O-shaped?

Lawyers of the future will need to be exposed to a broader education so they can meet the demands that they are likely to face. They will have to live and breathe the five O’s (Open, Original, Opportunist, Ownership and Optimism) – a framework that is essentially about recognising the importance of the people-side of the legal profession.

What’s the plan for the panel?

The team came together wanting to do something different – to look at how law firms would provide their service and not just what their service would be. We wanted to create genuine partnerships with our law firms rather than just an extension of our team, and our internal customers would be the focus. It’s not been easy for any of us because we are looking at a change of mindset for all of us to embed a culture of continuous improvement, using data and bespoke incentive-based KPIs to hold each other to account.

How will you manage your partnership?

Our focus on mining and analysing the data has allowed us to be smarter in managing our external spend. Last year we recruited our first-ever legal operations manager, a former risk and assurance manager, who has brought rigour and structure to the arrangements with our law firm partners. He has helped us place a real focus on the amount of waste that exists in how we engage with our external partners.

Can competition between panel firms really be removed?

Transparency is key to the success of our partnership. We want open and honest relationships with our firms where it becomes the norm to share across the partnership – both best and worst practice – so we can continue to learn from each other to improve our collective service to the business. It’s inevitable that there will be differences between the partners and we have constructed the arrangements, including a partnership steering group, in such a way that concerns are shared not hidden and that tensions are tackled quickly not deferred.

Other projects?

I firmly believe in putting people first. If we empower our people and provide them with the skills and tools they need to fulfil their potential, we are much more likely to provide our customers with a more compelling service.