It feels an age since global infrastructure group Balfour Beatty announced its seventh profit warning in a couple of years, had its chief executive quit and was in the midst of merger talks with rival construction group Carillion. But this was little more than three years ago. Carillion recently spectacularly collapsed. Balfour Beatty, meanwhile, in March announced it had more than doubled its underlying profit for the 2017 financial year to £196m, while having an order book worth £11.4bn. Behind this has been the admired in-house legal team led by David Mercer, who was promoted to group GC and head of legal in mid-2015, replacing Chris Vaughan. A trio of leaders below Mercer, however, are also credited for their work: associate GCs Terry Styant and Mike Dallas, and deputy GC and head of group legal and compliance Keely Hibbitt. Pinsent Masons head of client strategy Alastair Morrison observes: ‘Within the function you’ve got a really high-quality team that’s been able to work through a range of different issues.’ Morrison knows the team well, given his firm’s longstanding solesupplier mandate with the FTSE 250 company that kicked off in 2013 and was this year re-signed until 2020. The latest partnership has introduced new pricing structures for greater flexibility, such as variable fixed-price arrangements for routine projects, rather than a single capped fee for all businessas- usual matters, as was the case previously. Pinsents’ routine work will also generate credits that can be offset against legal spend on more complex work also handled by the firm. These credits can also be used for advice on the design and implementation of legal process technology. Mercer says of the deal: ‘We’ve unlocked significant value for Balfour Beatty through our partnership approach and remain committed to driving continuous improvement. We are now working together on tech-led innovation, blending legal service provision, in-house engagement and business system integration that is changing the way we do business and helping us to lead in this challenging market, not least in extracting maximum value from every legal pound spent.’ Morrison credits Mercer and the in-house team for its role in seeing Balfour Beatty come out of its rough patch: ‘The team has stuck with David through that period. He’s seen a lot of different things over his career and was the right person to guide them through this. He’s a guy who has got bags and bags of experience; he’s very calm and a good relationship person but also a strategic thinker as well.’