Q&A with an MLS Lawyer
Lawyers come in all different shapes and sizes. Perhaps the clearest development within the professional services industry is that clients are increasingly in need of a bespoke solution to meet their exact challenges. At Pinsent Masons Vario, our Managed Legal Services (MLS) team help to ensure that clients get exactly that through a tailored blend of the right people, processes and technology.
Within the people section of the MLS team, we have a range of legal professionals, from highly skilled paralegals to fully qualified MLS Lawyers. We recently sat down with Hirrah Mahmood, one of our MLS Lawyers, to find out more about her experience working with Vario.
What was your experience prior to being an MLS lawyer at Vario?
I qualified as a Barrister in 2015 and have since also cross qualified as a Solicitor. I have worked across a number of in-house and private practice legal teams and most recently spent several years in Managed Legal Services.
My legal specialism is general commercial law with a specific focus on IT/ tech, data, outsourcing and wider supply chain management (B2B / B2C). Through this, I’ve had the opportunity to support a number of globally recognized clients across EMEA, APAC and the US in so many different industries. To name just a few, I’ve worked with clients in telecommunications, IT / tech, government and public services, financial services, entertainment and hospitality, transportation, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, mining and private equity. It’s fair to say that I’ve had a fairly varied career!
How does being an MLS lawyer differ from being a traditional lawyer?
Being an MLS Lawyer is about being adaptable, flexible and agile. It’s about having an antenna for what’s not right in front of you and having a creative mindset to drive continuous improvements. We don’t just support clients with legal opinions, it’s about collating your industry expertise, client knowledge and legal skills to provide solution focused advice.
Our relationships with our clients run deeper than simply churning out legal reviews on a per contract basis. We take the time to understand their business, their needs, their operating environment and to work with them to drive efficiencies in their legal processes. This can be done through active cost management, process and template simplification and developing appropriate guidance and governance procedures. At Pinsent Masons Vario, clients get all of this alongside the quality, brand recognition and support of an international professional services firm.
Ultimately, MLS Lawyers take their clients on a journey. It’s an end-to-end service where clients are supported, encouraged and motivated to achieve their strategic / streamlining goals.
Being an MLS Lawyer requires the ability to provide competent legal advice and protect the client's best interests, working in line with client mandates all the while complying with Pinsent Masons’ ethos, values and regulatory standards. You’ll find yourself wearing a number of hats!
What do you enjoy about being an MLS lawyer at Vario?
Early on in my legal career it became apparent to me that I was quite pragmatic and commercially minded. I have a strong radar for risk and although meticulous, my approach is realistic and practical. Having worked in both in-house and private practice environments, I never felt that the balance in my previous careers was right for me. MLS at Vario is the perfect blend - seamlessly integrating with clients whilst providing quality legal advice.
The ‘quality legal advice’ should be non-negotiable. You would expect that from any global brand, but it’s the add-ons that really make Vario stand out. Our bank of international legal experts, our industry insight, and our ability to interrogate data to provide meaningful insights and improvements with regards to their contracting methods, legal spend and general risk management.
Vario isn’t just “words” or “sales gimmicks”. We genuinely invest the time to investigate our clients' pain points and build our delivery models around them. We listen to our clients; we talk amongst each other and utilise our dynamic teams to figure out how best to support the client. Everything from building personalised technology systems to considering the best level of resource to creative cost visibility and management. Every journey is a personal one.
However, the thing I enjoy the most is the people. Part of my role includes leading the MLS Lawyer team and I speak first hand when I say that they really do go above and beyond. It’s not just a job. They believe in the value of MLS and are genuinely excited by the outcome of driving change for our clients.
If you think that your business would benefit from speaking to our Managed Legal Services team, get in touch to see how we can help you.