Mitie, the UK’s leading facilities management and professional services company, has appointed Dentons to undertake employment tribunal litigation and employment legal advisory services for a period of three years. As part of this engagement Mitie has selected Dentons’ managed legal services team, known as Dentons Helix, to deliver employment tribunal litigation work. Following Mitie’s December 2020 acquisition of Interserve’s Facilities Management business, the in-house employment legal team have set out a new strategy to ensure services offer the best value to Mitie whilst remaining client focused, innovative and technology led, to match Mitie’s client offering.
The Dentons Helix team that operates in the UK, Ireland and Middle East, streamlines the end-to-end delivery of aggregated legal work for a fixed monthly fee. Clients are provided with a dedicated team of Dentons professionals who act as an extension of clients’ legal teams in order to deliver the work. Uniquely for managed legal service offerings, Dentons Helix uses a combination of technology and legal input to provide both operational and legal specific insights enabling clients to proactively manage risk and strategically partner with business functions to make in-house Legal a strategic enabler rather than a hygiene factor.
Dentons Helix comprises a core managed legal services team of 35 lawyers, paralegals, legal technologists and data specialists, who work together with the Firm’s private practice lawyers in order to deliver the mix of work that is within the scope of each contract. It operates through a proprietary triage model built by experienced partners that measures incoming matters by both risk and complexity, allowing the disaggregation of low to medium complexity work so that it can be delivered in the most efficient and cost effective manner.
The service is underpinned by technology and data that helps In-House Counsel demonstrate genuine value to their businesses. Robust analysis of data that is generated through the delivery model provides them with insights into the work their legal teams are doing. They can see data on where legal work requests are coming from, and trends, such as a concentration of employment claims arising in specific parts of the business or a preponderance of specific types of claim. This data can be used to address line manager knowledge gaps and employee relations challenges which will, in time, reduce attrition, claim volumes and the associated business risks.
Oliver Loach, HR Director, Employment Law and Employee Relations, Mitie, said: “When looking for a legal partner we wanted a firm that really understood our tech-led approach, balancing the management of our low and medium complexity work, whilst giving our legal team the ability to call on the firm’s broader expertise when we need it. The Dentons Helix team stood out for understanding our needs and offering a solution that promises to act as an extension of our in-house team”
Virginia Allen, head of Dentons’ People, Reward and Mobility practice, said: ‘We recognise that the key challenges for In-House Counsel are time and resources, so this is a solution that provides them with the three most important things they are looking for: quality assurance, cost predictability and truly insightful data that can be used to enhance relationships with the wider business and help with informed decision making. We are excited to be collaborating with the Mitie team to provide truly innovative legal services.’
