Solicitors are playing an increasingly sophisticated role in complex outsourcing arrangements, and need to ensure they are involved early on to prevent clients falling foul of new legal and business risks, lawyers were told last week.


Peter Brudenall, partner in the City office of US firm Hunton & Williams, said companies now routinely outsource core functions to multiple suppliers - including board-level responsibilities - in a bid to secure the best talent and save money.



However, multi-supplier outsourcing deals also carry far bigger risks in terms of potential damage to reputation, data protection and intellectual property, he stressed.



Speaking at an event hosted by insurance broker Marsh last week, Mr Brudenall said the US and UK outsourcing model has become far more complicated and that 'call centres being outsourced to India is a fairly outdated idea'.



He said: 'Lawyers are getting more involved in actually structuring these arrangements. Ideally, we should be getting involved early on... because we see the other side when deals go wrong and need to be renegotiated.



'The lawyer's role has become more about how to add value to these types of deals, not just getting the legal side right.'



Anita Rice