How can the barriers be broken down between law firms and housing associations (as clients) to ensure that housing associations are optimising the use of the law firms effectively and efficiently. 

The barriers between law firms and housing associations (as clients) continue to exist, and include:

1. Separate siloed relationships can occur between law firms and individual instructions, without the benefit of being centrally managed and monitored. The risk of higher and duplicated legal costs increases.

2. Legal language is archaic and complex by its very nature. Therefore, the legal advice being provided may not be ‘jargon-free’ enough to clearly set out the position of the housing association.  If the legal advice sought is not clearly understood by the housing association – this risks siloed and impulsive decision making that can have wider strategic consequences

So what can be changed?  Well, there are things that housing associations (as clients) can do and there are also things that law firms (as legal experts) can do.  After all, to strengthen these relationships they must be two way with both parties open to improvement and feedback. 

What can housing associations do?

Firstly, investing the time and resource to identify the answers to the following questions:

1. Do we understand what we use legal services for and are these connected across the organisation?
2. Do we have a central process for how law firms are appointed to act on our behalf? Is this monitored?
3. Have standardised, concise and consistent legal instruction templates been created to appoint law firms that are holistic?
4. Does the law firm have holistic housing sector experience and knowledge to advise in a manner that recognises the lifecycle of the property portfolios of each housing association?
5. Does your housing association have legal expertise and is this being as well as centrally stored via a ‘knowledge base’ to enable a stronger legal understanding of subjects?

Some immediate benefits to the answers to some of these questions are legal cost reductions.  By streamlining the internal processes and procedures of sending out legal instructions, this breaks the siloed approach to legal instructions. 

I will share an example which may help to put this into context,  Let’s use the process of appointing a law firm to carry out the legal work for the development/redevelopment of a site:

• Frequently, this would be an instruction from project manager to a law firm. What is the project manager instructing the law firm to do?  Do these instructions think about the lifecycle of the properties and future strategic opportunities (i.e. potential to dispose and/or potential borrowing value)?

• Does the law firm appointed have the depth and breadth of a full service to be able to ensure that you achieve complete transparency on risks and opportunities? If so, do they collaborate closely enough to ensure that the housing association are provided with a holistic understanding of future implications – rather than purely just agreeing the document?

• Can it answer questions such as confirming the potential borrowing value of the properties on site?

It is critical that housing associations understand the commercial implications of what is being agreed in the legal documents – don’t just leave it to the law firms.  It is your organisation and you know it best – therefore it is your responsibility to be clear on what you require your law firm to do and that they are asked to send this advice in a form that is easy to understand.

What can the law firms do?

A few law firms are already starting to shift their thinking and communicating better within their own teams – to provide the best possible structured and thorough legal advice that will support future strategic ambitions. 

Some questions for law firms:

1. Do you use your experience within your law firm to ensure that you are able to provide a holistic legal service to your housing association clients with any instructions that you receive?

2. How much internal transparency is there on mutual clients across teams and how to best advise and support those housing association clients? Encouraging the silo breakdown on both the law firm side and the housing association side.

3. Do you understand enough experience and exposures to the sector and its nuances to be able to provide appropriate advice?  the shift to a proactive culture that strengthens the delivery of the housing association’s strategic objectives.

4. How can you better support the sector?

There are several opportunities for law firms and housing associations to identify opportunities to work better together to remove the silo barriers that exist between the concept of legal transactions. 

Thinking differently – such as identifying whether law firms are used to fill a resource gap and that could be avoided if robust processes and procedures with monitoring are put in place. 

Instructions to law firms and legal advice provided by law firms must equally be clear and concise to benefit housing associations – transparency is critical.