About

Team size: 192

Major legal advisers: Bevan Brittan, Browne Jacobson, Burges Salmon, DAC Beachcroft, Dentons, DLA Piper, Eversheds Sutherland, Fieldfisher, Gowling WLG, Hogan Lovells, Linklaters, Mills & Reeve, Pinsent Masons, PwC, Simmons & Simmons, Slaughter and May, TLT, Womble Bond Dickinson

Wendy Hardaker has radically overhauled the Government Legal Department’s service delivery model in the six years she has been commercial law director. The department has more than doubled headcount to 192 staff in that time and its adviser panel was slashed from nearly 50 firms to just 18. In doing so, she has dramatically reduced external legal costs.

Hardaker is credited with both remodelling and modernising the relationship between government and its law firm advisers too. In 2017, this saw more than 30 firms cut from its commercial panel and the number of lots reduced from eight to two, covering general legal advice services (GLAS). She says proper relationship management has allowed the government to leverage its buying power to receive value-added services ranging from free legal advice to event hosting and business analysis. Her department breaks down into 164 lawyers and 23 business management staff, with five people leading on panel relationship management.

TLT partner and head of commercial services Bill Hull comments: ‘Her unique approach to managing the government’s GLAS legal advisers – one of the most significant panels in the UK in terms of spend – has driven significant value-adds, including demanding much more engagement and improving collaboration between the firms.’

Hardaker adds: ‘It’s about getting the balance between competitive tension and partnership right by promoting the appropriate use of direct awards, mini competitions and alternative fee arrangements.’

She has simultaneously grown her team and the share of legal work undertaken outside of London, with the commercial law group one of the biggest and most geographically-dispersed squads of government lawyers, including teams in Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. Last year, Hardaker also introduced a commercial lawyer trainee scheme, with the first cohort of nine trainees starting in September 2019, while inclusion is a focus for 2020, with the legal team already split 44:56 male to female, having 24% BAME representation, 7% disabled and 5% LGBT.

An updated strategy to 2024 sets the goal of unifying its delivery even further to be ‘greater than the sum of our parts. We responded to the enormous EU exit challenges, for example, by joining our collective legal resources in a much more effective and joined up way than would have been possible previously’, she comments. ‘A challenge has been building a mutually-beneficial partnership with our general legal advice services panel during a period where political change and Brexit have meant that legal work pipelines have been inevitably uncertain.’