The idea behind Mexican-Wave is a simple one. Lovells carries out the higher grade work at current City market rates while managing the outsourcing of the more routine work to a select group of regional law firms, referred to as legal service providers (LSP). This provides the client with the highest quality work at the lowest possible cost.

The philosophy which led to the development of Mexican-Wave was one of business transparency and fairness. At one end of the scale (usually the higher value transactions) clients expect sophisticated corporate/finance/tax-based products usually created on an individual basis. At the other end (usually the majority of transactions at lower value) the demand is for work of a traditional nature with an emphasis on accuracy and speed, rather than structural creativity.

The overheads of City firms demand a certain minimum fee rate and it was clear to Lovells that the rate for traditional work could be bettered by hand-picked regional firms with their lower rates. If Lovells could do the more complex work at current City market rates and the more traditional work could be carried out by an LSP (selected and monitored by Lovells) with all cost savings passed to the client, then both Lovells and the client could gain real business benefits.

Mexican-Wave is a business process. New instructions are e-mailed to a constantly monitored e-mail address at Lovells where the instruction is logged onto MexNet.

MexNet is the unique extranet designed by Lovells to connect them with the client and the LSP and is a key feature of the Mexican-Wave business process. The specially developed workflow management system enables Lovells to control quality and service delivery.

Once an instruction has been logged, MexNet sends an automatic e-mail acknowledgment to the client. The instruction is then reviewed by the Mexican-Wave team, which includes a senior lawyer, and allocated to either Lovells or an LSP. The allocation decision is based on complexity, value and geography. Once a lawyer has been assigned to a matter, a second e-mail is generated by MexNet and automatically sent to the client providing contact information and a link to MexNet.

MexNet not only records instructions but gives the client, lawyers and LSPs 24-hour secure access to:

While scanned deeds are not essential to the Mexican-Wave business process, they do make it more efficient. A complete package of documents is provided to the LSP within MexNet itself at the time the instruction is allocated or shortly after. At the end of a transaction all completed documents are uploaded to MexNet. Over time this creates an expanding electronic deeds store and provides fast and easy access to deeds for the client and lawyer. The electronic deeds store is subject to the Lovells Business Continuity Plans and original deeds are stored securely at Lovells.

Any client would expect, and receive as standard, appropriate quality of advice, personal contact and high quality documents and all of these are part of the Mexican-Wave process. However, clients using Mexican-Wave also receive many additional benefits:

Mexican-Wave was originally devised for PRUPIM, the real estate investment management company, and with their encouragement it has been adopted (either in whole or in part) by other clients, including Prudential PLC and AVIVA. It is applicable to all areas of law, not only property and not only in the UK. Any work with a repeatable and defined work flow process where there is a mixture of higher value and more routine instructions could potentially benefit from the use of MexNet and Mexican-Wave.

Lovells is also introducing MexNet to clients who are interested in the efficiency and ease of instruction offered by MexNet, even though the outsourcing element of Mexican-Wave may not currently be required.