“We are honoured to have been recognised for the second year in a row. This is a testament to the ongoing excellent work and service that our team and offering has provided to clients,” said Vanessa Kingsmill, Head of Alternative Legal Services, Johannesburg.
For this category at the awards, entrants had to convince the judges that they are not only leaders in their chosen market, but also that they have made significant progress over the past 12 to 18 months. Judges expected evidence of legal expertise and innovation, strategic vision, business winning, client care, employee development, sustainable improvements in financial performance, and a commitment to CSR. The Herbert Smith Freehills’ team clearly impressed in all these areas.
One of the projects featured in the award submission involved supporting the UK and EMEA legal team of a global consulting client with the review and negotiation of a range of their commercial contracts. After an initial pilot phase, the client has now embedded this service into their ways of working.As a result, ALT operates as a seamless extension of their team, by continuously updating their knowledge repository, using key data points captured to further enhance the service, and producing data-driven insights into their contracting cycle.
The client has also extended the range of ALT’s services to a number of additional work streams and has been so impressed by the service that they have recently rolled it out to their Asia-Pacific region. The client’s GC for EMEA commented, “The ALT team has been great to work with – they are genuinely nice people, have been commercial in their approach and have really partnered with us to deliver fantastic results to our business.”
Since 2017, Herbert Smith Freehills’ investment in developing an ALT capability in South Africa has seen the firm’s ALT Johannesburg hub successfully disrupt a rapidly evolving legal services market in Africa. ALT utilises innovative, market-leading solutions to deliver high volume, document/data intensive legal work for clients. In winning this award the firm has been recognised for the way it combines cutting-edge technology with legal expertise, ensuring clients benefit from a high quality, cost-competitive, bespoke service, on a global scale.
“In just five years, we’ve truly changed the landscape for legal services in South Africa by utilising our distinctive mix of the right technology and practitioners, and we are thrilled to have been recognised again by the prestigious African Legal Awards as Alternative Service Provider of the Year for 2022,” commented Lyn Harris, Partner – Alternative Legal Services.
“This award enhances the growing reputation of this high-performing, talented and diverse team,” added Jean Meijer, Managing Partner, Johannesburg. “We are exceptionally proud of the work that they do and the immense value they add to the firm and deliver to our clients.”
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