Carillion collapse: Scores of Newcastle jobs saved by Clifford Chance | City A.M.

Magic circle law firm Clifford Chance today snapped up a law firm run by failed contractor Carillion.

Some 60 jobs have been saved at the Newcastle base of Carillion Advice Services (CAS) – a paralegal and commodity managed legal services firm.

Originally developed as part of Carillion’s in-house legal team, the firm started supporting third parties and other legal teams around six years ago.

Clifford Chance UK managing partner Michael Bates said: “Our priority is always to ensure that we are best placed to provide the optimum service to our clients. By working with the CAS team, we will enhance our ability to provide extremely cost-effective, efficient and high-quality service on a range of low complexity legal tasks as an integral part of our overall client offer.

“To date, we have delivered this work either through our Legal Support Centre in India, or through working with other third parties including legal outsourcers. The addition of the team in Newcastle, with their well-recognised expertise in unbundling, developing processes and applying the latest in legal tech, will enable us to provide clients with another option from within the firm.”

Read more: Serco has wangled down the price of Carillion healthcare contracts by £20m

Clifford Chance global head of client services Oliver Campbell said he had been “very impressed” by the CAS team.

“They bring a huge amount of expertise in areas that are already an important priority for the firm, such as legal tech and process-driven service delivery. Their client-centric culture, enthusiasm and proven entrepreneurialism is also a good fit and I see many opportunities for clients, and for both teams as we move forward.”

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