WIREDGOV

Our aim is to provide clients with a legal service that is both high-quality and cost-effective. We provide practical support for procurement teams by advising on the risks that typically arise on contracts for the relevant type of products and services, using our experience to identify those risks and suggest mitigating actions, and we ensure that the contract paperwork accurately captures the parties’ understanding about how the risks are allocated.

Every matter is handled personally by one of our Directors, and we adopt a hands-on, commercially-minded approach to getting deals done. We can advise on everything from simple commercial contracts up to large, high-value and complex transactions, without mobilizing an army of junior lawyers as more traditional law firms tend to do. This minimizes duplication of both time and costs.

Client Care

The hands-on approach is also reflected in client care arrangements. Our philosophy with regard to billing is "no surprises". In order to help clients manage their legal budget, we will not send out a bill without first agreeing it with the client, and we will provide whatever supporting information the client needs in terms of breaking down time spent and activities undertaken.

We also regard the following value-added services as an integral part of TLA client care:

• We believe that there should be "no charge for chat" - we do not charge clients for occasional ad hoc calls, for example just to sanity-check a particular approach to drafting.

• We offer regular legal training to all our clients – again, this is generally at no charge, unless the content is heavily tailored for the client’s specific requirements.

Charging Arrangements

Like most law firms, TLA bases its charges ultimately on hourly rates. However, in practice we aim to incentivise clients to retain us on a secondment or a daily basis, and we are happy to discuss daily/weekly rates which are discounted from this headline figure. There may be further volume-based discounts to bring the daily rates even lower.

We have complete flexibility to vary that basic model. As some clients object in principle to hourly or daily charging, we can agree alternative methods like fixed or capped fees. The key to making these alternative models work – for all concerned – is to have clear agreement as to the scope of the activity required.

Public Sector Expertise

The team’s experience of public sector IT and outsourcing contracts includes advising on some of the UK’s biggest contracts for central government departments, local authorities, agencies and emergency services. Examples include:

• advising on a combined in-sourcing and outsourcing as part of a renegotiation of one of the UK’s largest ever public sector outsourcing contracts, where the customer organisation was a UK central government department;

• advising a County Council on a major SAP implementation, including negotiating the main software and services agreements with SAP and IBM, and working with the suppliers to ensure that their methodologies were expressed in a clear and legally-satisfactory manner and that project milestones and related charging arrangements were accurately captured;

• advising a healthcare regulator on contracts for the outsourcing of core IT infrastructure, and on a number of software procurements;

• advising a police authority on the contracts for the second-generation outsourcing of its IT infrastructure, leading a team dealing with every aspect of the procurement, from due diligence on the existing first-generation contracts, through ITT, negotiations and contract signature;

• advising various suppliers on a range of IT contracts in the public sector, including bids and agreements concerning a major IT programme for a London Borough Council and a regional democratic assembly;

• performing gap analysis reviews of framework and sub-contracting agreements, highlighting gaps and proposing solutions, in relation to the provision of outsourced IT services; and

• undertaking practical legal research on Public Contracts Regulations and the standard contractual terms used in certain contracts. 

Further Information

For more information about Technology Law Alliance, please contact:

Jeremy Newton
Director
Technology Law Alliance
7 Stratford Place
London

Direct Dial: 0845 351 9094
Mobile: 07749 631 620
Website: www.TLA.legal