Richard Tapp is Director of Legal Services and Company Secretary of support services and construction company Carillion plc. He joined the company in 2002, after a short period at a food company and following six years at the building materials business, Blue Circle, where he also held the GC role as company secretary and group legal advisor.

Unlike most solicitors, Tapp trained in-house and has never worked in private practice. At the outset he undertook summer internships both in-house (at the National Coal Board) and in private practice, and found working in the large legal team at the Board the more interesting of the two. He recalls that the Board carried out all its legal work in-house, and was also experimenting with processes unheard of in private practice at that point. Having completed his training contract at the Board, he worked there during the miners’ strike, which, as might be expected, comprised the bulk of the legal workload at that time.

With such an unusual introduction to his legal career, it is perhaps unsurprising that Tapp has been recognised as highly innovative and forward-looking in the in-house world. He has "always tried to be innovative around how to provide legal services" at Carillion, and this is evident in the composition of his legal team and the way it operates.

Carillion’s legal team, known as Carillion Legal, supports the company’s five key businesses:

With 46,000 employees worldwide (20,000 in the UK), annual revenues of £4 billion, and as one of the UK’s leading support services and construction companies, Carillion’s demand for legal support is, as Tapp puts it, "insatiable".

One of Tapp's key challenges is understanding how to manage that demand. He says that, as a result of an assessment carried out a few years ago, Carillion Legal has decided on a "make or buy" strategy to determine what it provides itself and what it procures from external law firms. Those areas that contribute directly to the business or save it money (outsourcing, construction, project finance and, to a limited extent, corporate) fall under Carillion Legal’s remit. All other functions, such as major corporate work, competition, IP, IT, employment, pensions and property are provided by external firms.

As a result, Carillion Legal is comparatively small, comprising around 30 lawyers in the UK and a handful of lawyers in the Middle East and Canada. By maintaining a focus on the core business, Tapp runs a streamlined and targeted team, and says he is able to recruit the best people, with the intellectual curiosity to be long term assets to both the legal team and the business. "Retention in Carillion Legal is very good; we take a very long time to recruit, and we always recruit looking to the future" says Tapp.

He describes Carillion as a fascinating business that embraces change, and which is extremely broad, with no single product or service. Most of its activity involves mainly bespoke contracts, which means that the lawyers who draft and negotiate them have to be integral to the business. In recognition of this, divisional general counsel sit on senior leadership teams in each business segment.

One of the most innovative components of Carillion’s legal function is the standalone business, Carillion Advice Services (CAS). Comprised of around 70 paralegals, this unique entity provides a range of legal services not only to Carillion, but to the external law firms that Carillion uses, as well as other corporates. It also carries out legal aid work and is the largest provider of telephone legal aid for the Ministry of Justice.

Originally acquired in an embryonic form as part of an unrelated business bought by Carillion in 2011, CAS has developed into an extremely useful and worthwhile business, providing both legal services on a commercial basis and valuable support to the most vulnerable in society. It is both Lexcel accredited and legal aid audited. Tapp says of CAS: "It’s helpful to us because it allows us to create systems and processes for our own work, and to trial new technologies, which will improve our core services to Carillion."

Lawyers at Carillion Legal, Tapp notes, appreciate the base level support that CAS provides, as it allows them to focus on the higher value elements of their work. CAS draws its recruits from a pool of graduates who have not yet secured training contracts, a hitherto untapped resource, which can fulfil many routine legal functions. Carillion Legal rarely recruits junior lawyers externally as their functions can be provided by CAS, and Tapp explains that, on leaving CAS, many graduates become absorbed into Carillion itself. Indeed, Carillion Legal is now starting to provide training contracts for CAS employees.

In relation to external law firms, Tapp states: "We started using CAS for ourselves and realised there was a market beyond Carillion." Carillion requires its external law firms to use CAS to fulfil appropriate functions on Carillion matters and some firms also use CAS for clients other than Carillion. Tapp explains that its smaller external firms are often keen to use CAS to compete on price, and that its litigation firms use CAS extensively for discovery and disclosure work.

Carillion Legal’s philosophy in regard to its panel of external law firms, known as "the Carillion Legal Network", is that the law in-house is the legal team’s responsibility but that they cannot deliver it on their own. Tapp believes developing relationships with firms who will be the eyes and ears of the business is key. As a process-driven organisation, Carillion manages the Network in a very structured way, for example by holding meetings of all Network partners twice a year and hosting Network conferences, which Carillion managers attend. He emphasises the need to ensure that Network partners understand and relate to the business.

Nearing the end of a politically tumultuous year, Tapp’s belief in preparing for the future seems particularly instructive. "Of course, we must focus on the tasks in hand, but we must also look over the horizon," he says. He highlights the pressing government priority of modern slavery, and the need to assess and anticipate how this issue may affect the business as a priority. "As essentially a government supplier and contractor, Carillion is very cognisant of everything we do in the public arena."

As regards the EU referendum, Tapp explains that well before the vote took place, Carillion completed a detailed project assessing the potential impact of the different outcomes on, for example, the goods Carillion buys and the people it employs. It, like the rest of the UK, is currently waiting to discover how the result will be implemented.

Tapp notes that planning for the future in a period of uncertainty is challenging, but that he will continue to look for innovations to help deliver legal services, as well as developing CAS and ensuring Carillion Legal is well placed to continue to help its customers.