Treasury solicitor Paul Jenkins, head of the Government Legal Service, tells Jonathan Rayner what it is like running one of the country's largest legal practices

Paul Jenkins has led a team of around 1,400 solicitors and 500 barristers since becoming Treasury Solicitor and head of the Government Legal Service (GLS) a year ago. His record, so far, looks impressive. The GLS continues to attract high-calibre lawyers. Staff retention rates are extraordinarily high. And of particular interest to private law firms, the GLS has just announced framework agreements with the sector worth £240 million.

Mr Jenkins, a barrister, began his career with the GLS in 1979. He worked stints at the Treasury, where he advised on privatisations, and at the Lord Chancellor’s Department (as it was then), where he worked with Lord Derry Irvine to open up overseas markets for legal services.

He has advised emerging democracies on the processes of land registration and UK museums on a wide range of legal matters. There were also spells at the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and elsewhere – before he reached his present position in August 2006.

He says: ‘It’s been a fascinating time. I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in the sort of high-profile work which has, at times, dominated the front pages in the national press.’ Such projects included the launch of the National Lottery and taking the London Stock Exchange to court for restrictive practices, helping to precipitate ‘Big Bang’ and transform the face of the London financial markets forever.

The GLS currently comprises 1,977 lawyers, including 52 trainees, making it one of the largest legal practices in the country. It works across government, providing lawyers to about 30 departments and public agencies – although not to certain ‘associate bodies’ such as the Crown Prosecution Service and Land Registry.

There may be anything from just one to around 400 lawyers in any single department or agency, with the largest GLS teams being the Treasury Solicitors Department (394), the Ministry of Justice (186) and HM Revenue & Customs (181). All teams and individuals are supported by the GLS Secretariat, a small group of administrators, which also provides a confidential career counselling service

The GLS is growing, with 163 and 157 joiners in 2005 and 2006 respectively – and just 79 leavers in each of those years. One reason for this growth is that departments are increasingly contracting out services, giving rise to employment issues, which the GLS is called upon to help address. Another reason arises from the government’s legislative programme in such challenging areas as devolution, freedom of information, education, constitutional and electoral reform, better regulation and human rights.

All of these developments have increased the demand within the Civil Service for in-house legal services. And yet none of the solicitors working for the GLS, to the chagrin of many, pays a practising certificate (PC) fee. Mr Jenkins says: ‘We are already more subject to regulation than other solicitors – if we get it wrong, we can be hauled in front of a parliamentary committee. And anyway, the government is committed to less regulation. Also, by not paying for a PC, we’re saving taxpayers’ money.’

One of the appeals of life in the GLS is the opportunity to change department and responsibilities every few years, which many find an attractive alternative to the early specialisation often required by law firms. ‘Staff tell us that the opportunity to take on fresh challenges and learn new skills is a strong incentive to make their career with the GLS, giving us retention levels that are the envy of the private sector. But we also offer staff the widest range of flexible working patterns. For example, I once worked in a department where only 20% of the lawyers worked in the office the full five days a week. The great majority were either part-time, job-sharers or worked regularly from home.’

He recalls talking with the senior partner of a big City firm about the GLS’s success with staff recruitment and retention, saying: ‘The day you guys get the work-life balance right, we’ll be in trouble.’ To which the senior partner replied: ‘Don’t worry – it won’t happen in our lifetimes.’

The GLS enjoys a mutually beneficial relationship with private practice firms, particularly the 48 that won places on its Catalist scheme for buying legal services. Worth £240 million over four years, it covers eight categories of legal services provision: IT, telecoms and e-commerce; property and estates; construction; employment and pensions; corporate and finance; intellectual property; full commercial; and major projects.

Catalist was developed by the Office of Government Commerce and the Treasury Solicitor’s Department. It replaces the L-CAT scheme, which saved the government more than £5 million in its last year of operation. Successful firms included Linklaters, Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May, Herbert Smith, Eversheds, DLA Piper and Pinsent Masons.

Mr Jenkins says that the GLS, as it has recruited more lawyers with strong commercial backgrounds, has become ‘an ever more intelligent customer of law firms’. He adds that he anticipates a move away from ad hoc departmental arrangements to the exclusive use of Catalist-approved suppliers – unless a sound business case can be made to justify the contrary.

He says: ‘Catalist focuses on value for money for the taxpayer. A long and detailed procurement process has identified the best prices from the best suppliers, and we would need to see a careful justification for going outside it. Apart from anything else, a change of supplier can prevent complacency and sloppy practices creeping into a relationship.’

Mr Jenkins is at pains to stress that the GLS is a modern body focused on providing the best possible legal advice: ‘The stuffy image of bowler hats and pinstripe trousers is a thing of the past.’ He gives, as an example of modern attitudes, his own insistence on sitting at a desk in an open plan office so that colleagues can approach him more easily. Other examples include hot desking and the planned investment in sophisticated case management systems.

Barriers to career progression on the grounds of gender, race, disability, age, sexuality and religion are also things of the past, Mr Jenkins says. ‘Along with the Civil Service as a whole, we signed up to a ten-point action plan to improve our equality and diversity performance. For example, as part of our commitment to making it easier for women to achieve the most senior posts, we allow job sharing at a level of seniority that is unknown in private practice. As a consequence, women – who make up 59% of the total GLS population – hold some of the top lawyer positions in Revenue & Customs, the Ministry of Justice and elsewhere.’

The GLS also reports that around 12.5% of its lawyers are of black or other minority ethnic background. This compares favourably with around 10% of lawyers in the legal profession as a whole who come from ethnic backgrounds.

GLS leadership extends into the area of charity, too. A team led by GLS employment lawyer Caroline Harold won the LawWorks in-house pro bono award in June.

Mr Jenkins comments: ‘Full marks to our minister, the Attorney-General [at the time, Lord Goldsmith], who has championed pro bono work in the GLS and across the profession as a whole.’

He adds that a number of informal groups have ‘sprung up within the GLS to work together where it is right to do so’. He gives the example of the part-time workers forum, saying ‘such bottom-upwards initiatives provide valuable input for development’.


Mr Jenkins observes that in an almost 30-year career with the GLS, he has never once felt conflicted. ‘The GLS is not the government’s family solicitor. We give independent legal advice, even if it’s not the advice they want to hear.’ And in summarising that nearly 30-year career, he says: ‘It’s been huge amounts of fun doing serious business.’