Lincolnshire councils set lawyers free

Lawyers working for in-house legal teams for six Lincolnshire local authorities are set to become guinea pigs in what could turn public sector legal businesses on their heads.<br/>

Lawyers working for in-house legal teams for six Lincolnshire local authorities are set to become guinea pigs in what could turn public sector legal businesses on their heads.

The scheme, organised between the local authorities, will involve allowing the council's in-house lawyers to work for anybody, on the open market.

It is hoped that such freedoms will mean that rather than the council paying for a legal team, the authorities will be able to enjoy profits from work carried out by their lawyers with other public sector organisations.

Speaking about the new project, which could see the bar raised significantly for public sector lawyers, Sarah McCombie, the project’s interim director, said: "We're going to be competing against anybody providing legal services to the public sector.

"Where the public sector is using private practice firms, we'll seek to take that work too. We don’t think this has ever been done before."

The news comes as there are concerns over the legal jobs market but public sector demand for lawyers is likely to remain stable despite economic pressures.

In recent weeks it has been remarked that housing-related solicitor roles have been falling dramatically, although this is only one sector of the jobs market.