Andrea Clarke, director of legal at Transport for London
TfL set about streamlining its legal panel, announcing back in October 2012 it was cutting its outside legal consultants, from 12 to 11 firms. Bird & Bird, Clifford Chance, Manches and Travers Smith were notably absent from the new list, replaced by Lewis Silkin, SNR Denton (now Dentons) and Trowers & Hamlin.
“We are keen to have firms that appreciate the challenges we face,” adds Andrea Clarke, director of legal at Transport for London. “We look for people who take a pragmatic and collaborative approach.”
TfL has shaved the areas in which it employs the help of external lawyers to purely commercial projects, property, employment and litigation matters. Counsel is instructed on a range of public law issues.
All this fat trimming has reduced external spend to between £12m and £15m per year, a saving of more than £1m a year.
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But this comes at a cost in other ways. 2012 saw the defeat of TfL's legal team by Diamond Chauffeurs ltd. Even after the company were caught blatantly on film touting TfL's cut price team lost to a high court appeal and left it at that.
The legal team have now been labeled "The Quality Street Gang" and "Diamonds are forever" by the Taxi trade, after waiting twelve years to get a water tight, open and shut case against a PH operator openly touting, which they subsequently lost.
But this is all in a day’s work for Clarke, who heads "TfL’s Legal’s" team of 76 lawyers, alongside general counsel Howard Carter.
Little phased by the effect on the Taxi trade in general, TfL now operate a loose approach to PH licensing, as we now are starting to find out to our cost. Issues such as the ease in which Uber became licensed, plus also in 2012, RD2's acquisition of multiple licensed variations (satellite office licenses), without the requirement of being in business for the minimum period under TfL policy, which they now say is not a legal requirement, but just guidelines.
(RD2.com received all their licence variations on the same day they registered as a brand new operator)
This unit of 76 lawyers plus top TfL management Howard Carter, have now looked at the running of American company Uber and so far, can't decided between them if this company is operating legally or not and have had to seek judicial opinion.
£15m per year of tax payers money, 76 lawyers, 11 outside legal consultants and in Leon Daniels own words, they have had to ask someone smarter.
Source: The Lawyer. Video by Jim Thomas.
