Professional support lawyers have established themselves at law firms as specialists in fields from marketing to information technology. Philip Hoult looks at their growing role

The profile of professional support lawyers (PSLs) continues to rise and rise. Last month, saw the creation of a new networking group for PSLs working in financial services and banking. Called the Financial Services and Banking Law Know-How Network, it complements groups already in place for those working in the corporate and property fields.


This September will see the launch of a one-year postgraduate diploma in know-how management at Nottingham Law School, considered to be the first course of its kind anywhere.


These developments demonstrate just how far the role has come since the early 1990s, when firms first started to take people on as PSLs.


In the early days, the role was often poorly defined, according to Julian Boardman-Weston, principal tutor at Nottingham Law School and a member of the development team for the new course. ‘People used to make up the job as they went along,’ he says, describing the first PSLs as ‘pioneers’.


‘In fact, it is still much more of a frontier area of work,’ Mr Boardman-Weston adds. ‘It surprises me still that there seems to be little consensus as to what professional support lawyers should do and how they should be trained to do it.’


That said, several key trends have emerged over the past decade. The most obvious is the exponential growth in numbers as the value of the role has become more widely accepted. For example, at City firm Herbert Smith there are now 38 PSLs, while at Linklaters there are more than 50, half of whom are based outside the firm’s City headquarters. Ten years ago, there would have been at most a handful at either practice.


A second important trend is that, like frontline fee-earners, PSLs have become increasingly specialised. Whereas previously they may have been responsible for know-how for several practice areas, the vast majority now focus their efforts on a single area, with some individuals concentrating wholly on relatively narrow areas such as construction, pensions and share schemes.


PSLs have also become involved in an increasingly wide range of activities beyond simply keeping precedents up to date, traditionally seen as their bread-and-butter role.


They can be called on to train fee-earners and trainee solicitors or to assist in the development of on-line offerings. They will also often take part in general business planning and help with marketing initiatives such as newsletters and seminars.



They have also expanded into the world outside their firms. Last year, the London Property Support Lawyers Group – made up of members from around 20 large firms across the country – worked with the British Property Federation to create a set of standard enquiries for commercial property transactions (see [2002] Gazette, 19 September, 8).



According to Ann Donakey, head of know-how at Linklaters, fee-earners often have a limited idea of what the PSL does.


‘The roles are completely different,’ she says. ‘When fee-earners transfer over, one of the biggest surprises they get is the quality of the work.’


In international firms, PSLs are also increasingly seen as being central to obtaining the benefits of a global network of offices.


Clare Wilson, a Herbert Smith PSL, is one of the small but growing band to have made partner at a top City firm. She says PSLs have an important role to play in promoting information sharing and consis-tency, and in persuading lawyers in different offices to use one another. ‘They can help bring offices together and this makes for a truly international practice,’ she says.


Over the course of the past decade, senior managements have become convinced that continued investment in know-how is essential for the long-term health of their firms.


According to Dan Wilkins, recruitment consultant at Hays ZMB, this is the main reason why PSLs have largely escaped the recent cutbacks implemented by firms across the City to cope with the slowing pace of work over the last couple of years.


‘On the face of it, the fact that professional support lawyers have been left alone might be seen as surprising – particularly if you look at other support non-fee-earning functions, such as human resources, marketing and legal secretaries, where there have been a significant number of redundancies,’ says Mr Wilkins.


‘But the professional support lawyer role is now established as part of the smooth running of a practice. Firms are still recruiting them, although perhaps with not quite the urgency as before.’


So what does the future hold for PSLs? Directors of know-how and other senior support lawyers predict greater professionalism and additional specialisation to cope with the ever-increasing legislative burden. For example. at Clifford Chance, there are PSLs who spend all their time on education and training, while others focus on developing templates.


The link between PSLs and the use of IT by law firms will also grow, says Clifford Chance’s director of know-how, Paul Greenwood. ‘Technological skills will come to the fore with new document assembly and matter management tools,’ he explains. ‘There is a premium for people with a detailed understanding of how legal transactions work and with technological knowledge.


‘There is a lot more credibility if someone comes from the legal side first, then picks up the technological skills. If someone who is respected as a lawyer says a product is a valuable tool and that a department or team should change its way of working, then they can be very influential and so very valuable.’


The career path for PSLs is also likely to be increasingly clearly marked out, as firms seek to attract high-calibre applicants.


‘A big issue for professional support lawyers is, as qualified lawyers, what is their career structure?’ says Mr Boardman-Weston. ‘Some firms have wrongly tended to see them as a less important type of lawyer. The key thing is getting the best people in rather than people that a particular department wants to get rid of.’


Herbert Smith’s Ms Wilson agrees it is essential to attract the right quality of lawyer. ‘How can you possibly teach and train people about the law if you are not at least as good a lawyer as they are? That’s the core skill,’ she says. ‘We would never take anybody on who could not be a fee-earner here.’


Therefore, it seems likely that to attract and retain this talent, the number of PSLs to reach partner status, or perhaps some equivalent status to the position of a salaried partner, is likely to rise gradually.


Another potential development in the future is outsourcing the PSL’s role, with legal content providers looking to supply firms with at least part of the services now provided by support lawyers.


‘Up to 80% of what frontline fee-earners need to know is generic and not owned by one firm or another,’ says Guy Baring, head of sales and marketing at publisher PLC, which backed the property support lawyers’ work last year.


‘There is scope for providing that information through the Web. This allows firms to concentrate on the 20% that is their competitive advantage over their rivals.’


The publisher, which employs a team of 30 PSLs, aims to provide the generic information through its continuously updated Web service. The company has also launched a service that allows customers to download precedents and standard form agreements into their own house style.


‘It is not a case of saying to firms “sack all your support lawyers” but rather that they should concentrate their resources in a more profitable way,’ Mr Baring says, adding that the service will also appeal to those firms and in-house legal departments who cannot afford the expense of employing their own support lawyers.


It remains to be seen how far law firms are prepared to outsource the role. But, whether they work for a law firm or a content provider, the future for PSLs looks to be bright.



Philip Hoult is a freelance journalist