How are KPMG UK addressing the increasing pressure put on in-house legal teams?
Two new appointments to their LOTS team shows how KPMG UK plans to offer more services to their clients
We are living through a period of rapid change, and it is prompting a mixed bag of reactions from industry. For some, it is proving to be a struggle to keep up—for others, change presents moments of great opportunity.
KPMG UK has announced the appointment of two new members who will be heading up their Legal Operations & Transformation Services (LOTS). They have claimed that this is to help address the rapidly changing requirements of in-house lawyers.
“The demands on today’s in-house legal teams are increasingly changing, which is putting more pressure on budgets and resources.”
“I delighted to join KPMG to launch LOTS in the UK,” said the newly appointed director and UK head of LOTS at KPMG, Nicola Brooks.
With previous experience as operations director at Travers Smith, Brooks has been responsible for maintaining efficiency in a team, as well as producing consistently high quality and innovative Legal Services Delivery.
Joining Brooks, is KPMG LOTS’ new head of legal technology and innovation, James Thomas.
“They will significantly strengthen our capability in this area, drawing together multi-disciplinary capabilities from KPMG and the wider market to help in-house legal teams evolve in an industry which is facing unprecedented levels of change.”
Thomas has previously been working in the role of global lead of legal technology at KPMG International since 2016. Now, he will be focusing his expertise on supporting the LOTS proposition.
Nick Roome, partner and UK head of legal services at KPMG, said: “The demands on today’s in-house legal teams are increasingly changing, which is putting more pressure on budgets and resources. That’s why we are excited to launch LOTS to help in-house legal functions adapt and become the legal teams of the future.”
“This will help [KPMG] to meet the demands of the modern legal market, including evolving regulation, the digital economy, and increased business disruption.”
As well as these two new appointments, KPMG has revealed that the team will be joined by transformation specialists from KPMG Boxwood; the team will be working under Neill Whitaker and Simon McCall and will help the general counsel to re-imagine how legal services can be delivering to the business.
KPMG stated: “This will help [KPMG] to meet the demands of the modern legal market, including evolving regulation, the digital economy, and increased business disruption.”
“Being part of the KPMG network enables us to draw together a first-class multidisciplinary team to help our clients transform the way they deliver legal services across their organisations,” Brooks added.
“We want to help them develop solutions that maximise cost efficiencies, optimise operations, and continue to position them as a strategic business facilitator and manager of legal risk. Much of this will be enabled by the right people strategy, good process, and underpinned by technology.”
Resources & Whitepapers
Accounting Software The power of customisation in accounting systems
“Being part of a global professional services network means that we are ideally placed to draw on our firm’s breadth of knowledge and business insight, combined with high quality legal expertise to provide a better depth of support for clients, and a broader range of experiences for our people.”
KPMG Australia, Switzerland, Germany, and the UK all now offer LOTS to their clients; the Big Four firm is steadily increasing their global and cross-border insight.
The firm will now also be more easily able to leverage their technology capabilities. For example, strategic partnerships will third party technology providers to help evolve in-house legal functions.
Roome concluded: “I’m also thrilled to welcome Nicola and James to the team. They will significantly strengthen our capability in this area, drawing together multidisciplinary capabilities from KPMG and the wider market to help in-house legal teams evolve in an industry which is facing unprecedented levels of change.
“Being part of a global professional services network means that we are ideally placed to draw on our firm’s breadth of knowledge and business insight, combined with high quality legal expertise to provide a better depth of support for clients, and a broader range of experiences for our people.”