An increasing number of in-house legal counsel are forgoing private practice solicitors when it comes to briefing the Bar.

According to those counsels along with significant cost savings, briefing directly to the Bar on matters can also provide greater control. “I like to be in control of my own destiny,” said Meighan Heard, legal and insurance manager at Theiss John Holland. “I have an appetite for risk, provided I have people in the team or myself who can take those on board.”

Heard has been briefing directly to the Bar since hiring the first construction litigator on the legal team  two years ago. “When I hired the first litigator in 2010, one of the reasons I did that was because on projects there is very little room to move on dollar spend… I’m not a construction litigator, I needed someone who knew the structure and court procedures so that we could go directly to the Bar and we have done successfully,” she added. “I think there is scope for general counsels to take some risks in that space, if they have the resources and the interest.”

The Leasing Centre has also been briefing directly to the Bar since the inception of the legal team some three years ago. Legal counsel for the centre, Jeffery Doo, agrees there are significant cost benefits to be gained by briefing directly to the Bar, and it allows the legal team to be closer to the coalface of a matter. “We can achieve savings of between 63 and 67 percent by briefing directly,” he said. “It also allows us to have our finger in the pie, with direct control over what happens.”

Similar to Heard, Doo was not a commercial litigator before going in-house, but says general counsels seeking to brief the Bar directly don’t have to have litigation experience. “If you have some commercial nous you can run litigation very easily,” he said. So far only one barrister has declined Doo’s direct engagement.

Melbourne-based barrister, Peter Caillard, says he is seeing more and more counsel brief him directly after what seems an absence of the practice. “When I was general counsel at TabCorp we briefed directly to the Bar, we did everything in-house, but I don’t think they do anymore,” said Caillard. “It goes in ebbs and waves. They build up in-house teams and do it all in-house and then they get rid of the team and move it all out again,” he said. “I’m now a barrister and am receiving instructions directly from the clients.”