A former legal chief at the Football Association has urged in-house lawyers to time-record as part of efforts to demonstrate value.

Alistair Maclean, former group legal director and company secretary at the FA (pictured), told a Law Society in-house event that if he was working in-house today he would ask his team to time-record.

Acknowledging that it was a controversial suggestion, Maclean said he would ask his team to time-record for a three- or four-week process to properly understand what they are doing with their time.

‘I appreciate that most people leave private practice because they don’t want to time-record,’ he said. ‘But I would absolutely get people to do it.’

Recalling his time at the FA, Maclean said: ‘I know that people in my legal team at the FA wasted time doing things that they shouldn’t have been doing – stuff they liked to do, hobby horses whatever it was, stuff that business was asking them to do which was inappropriate.’