Engaging External Legal Services

I want to obtain external legal advice. Can I instruct solicitors directly?

You must contact Legal Services in the first instance for all legal advice. Unless expressly agreed otherwise, staff are not permitted to seek external legal advice directly. This includes international legal advice.

The University's solicitors are not permitted to accept instructions except from Legal Services or other agreed contacts and the University will not pay for legal advice that is not obtained via the Legal Services Department.

In deciding whether a matter can be dealt with by the in-house legal team or requires external advice, we will discuss the nature of the matter with you fully and, if external advice is appropriate, agree the scope of the legal services to be procured.

Usually, Legal Services will manage instructions to external lawyers. However, where it is agreed that it is more appropriate for the internal colleague to deal directly with the external solicitors, Legal Services will remain involved so that we can ensure costs are kept under control, to ensure the advice you receive is in accordance with you needs and to provide any additional support. In particular we will be provided with copies of advice given.

Who will pay for legal advice?

Where external advice is required, we will discuss with you prior to any instruction being made whether the advice will be paid for by the School or Function, or whether it will be funded by Legal Services.

If the advice is linked to a project or discrete matter, external advice will normally be charged to that project code and full details must be provided to Legal Services staff , Legal Services Administrator in order that a purchase order can be raised and the advice procured.