Corporate & Securities Law

Tyco and Eversheds, version 2.0

By John Wallbillich

The best way to sustain a competitive edge is to improve on something that’s already innovative.

Tyco and Eversheds announced today an expansion and upgrade of their multi-jurisdiction legal services agreement. The initial agreement caught the attention of many in January 2007 when Tyco took work done by 250 law firms in many countries and entrusted it to one firm, Eversheds.

I covered the first version here, and did an update earlier this year.

The new deal finds Eversheds adding new work to the mix:

During the next phase, Eversheds will continue handling high-end Tyco work such as the recent multi-jurisdiction Ancon business divestiture and the major restructuring of Tyco businesses in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Additionally it will bring new performance-based efficiencies to its regular commercial and compliance work.

There are some new wrinkles and Tyco-driven metrics as well:

Of equal significance, the new phase of the engagement provides Eversheds with substantial bonus incentives to meet pre-specified client satisfaction and diversity targets and achieve proactive litigation avoidance - in other words, promoting and encouraging behaviours that are counter-cultural at many traditional law firms.

Many lawyers aim for perfection and certainty, whether due to training or native disposition. What I find intriguing here is that Tyco and Eversheds are clearly learning on the go, working through issues that always arise when you are creating a template instead of copying one.

UK publication thelawyer.com has more.

Stay tuned, later this week I hope to bring forward some additional insights.

Full post as published by The Wired GC on May 19, 2008 (boomark / email).