Midlands universities to procure £3.5m legal services panel

Two universities in the Midlands are jointly tendering a legal services framework worth an estimated £3.5m over five years.

The University of Birmingham and the University of Nottingham said the framework would cover:

• information law
• academy sponsorship and governance matters
• higher education law including authority duties, charity law and corporate governance and compliance
• litigation in respect of contracts, grants, personal injury claims, negligence claims, breach of statutory duty
• land and property transactions, (freehold, leasehold), property litigation and some minor agricultural tenancy matters
• commercial law advice and assistance relevant to the universities’ operations including contracts, procurement, IT specific matters, research grants, intellectual property, copyright issues and matters connected to overseas operations. (includes legal support for development and construction work)
• employment related matters, (contentious and non-contentious) and including health and safety, immigration and pensions
• student related matters including contractual, procedural and statutory matters (including discrimination), some case-work/litigation and immigration
• licensing matters
• litigation work in respect of debt recovery
• professional regulatory advice on legal practice
• banking, corporate and spin-out support
• international law and the formation of international collaborations, company formation and acquisition
• intellectual property (contentious and non-contentious).

The universities said they would determine the number of service providers to be appointed to advise and/or represent them, adding that “this may be a general appointment or it may be separate appointments for specific, specialist areas of law and practice”.

It is anticipated that the universities will appoint a panel of service providers rather than a single source to fulfil all of their requirements and needs.