Sun Sea and Flexible Legal Services

Britta Spachtholz is a member of our Vario Legal team in Germany and is currently on secondment in Pinsent Masons’ Dubai office. She has moved out there for three months to help kickstart Vario’s Flexible Services business in the Middle East. We recently sat down with her to see how her first month has been. The interview below breaks down the progress made, challenges faced, and lessons learnt by her since moving to the Emirate.

How has your first month working in Dubai been?

I’ve been really busy so the time has flown by. That’s the first thing that stands out to me. We’ve been working on a large internal marketing effort and on top of that we’ve grown our candidate pool massively. In the last two weeks we’ve had 140 applications!

How has your role developed since you moved out to the UAE?

The aim of my secondment is to get Vario’s offering up and running from the Dubai office and we’ve started from scratch with this. In doing this, we’ve really divided the effort into work that brings in candidates and work that brings in clients.

With the amount of applications from well-qualified project lawyers, there is a lot to do, but it's really great to be able to rely on the team in the UK and to be able to fall back on processes that are already in place there. This means that our UK team takes care of pre-screening new candidates to ensure that basic requirements such as visa, work permit and work experience in the Emirates are met. I then speak to the partners from the respective departments here on site and discuss with them where they see the potential for working with the applicants in question. The detailed interviews are then conducted with the applicants. My role in the candidate process is essentially to provide assessments (based on my experience) where there are uncertainties with an applicant.

However, my main task now is to talk to the partners, legal directors, senior associates (and anyone with a client connection) to identify potential Vario projects. I work a little differently here to how I would do in Germany and have less direct client contact.

Instead, I work with our various internal teams to equip stakeholders with all the resources they need to get our Vario offering out there. Fortunately, things are beginning to move! We have started to receive the first proactive project enquiries from clients and we are working with them to win work for the firm.

Where is your focus right now and what are your priorities for the next few weeks?

Right now, I’m making sure that the basic resources are in place. My main focus is on supporting my colleagues on site in the way that makes the most sense for them individually. It's a bit like a seed that is now slowly sprouting. Above all, we are receiving queries and requests in individual cases to see how we could advance our clients' projects as an alternative legal service provider.

Nevertheless, everything is still in its infancy and is only slowly moving towards more stringent processes. This development process can be a bit nerve-wracking, but that’s one of my main priorities moving forward. At the moment, I'm involved in a lot of dialogue, providing support of varying intensity from case to case and trying to gently get all processes into shape. At the same time, I make sure that I fulfil the needs of the partners and their clients.

What new challenges have you faced from working in a new jurisdiction.

Setting up an ALSP offering in a different country is challenging because you have to consider different legal frameworks. Things are very different in the UAE than they are in Germany and indeed conditions vary from Emirate to Emirate. What works in Dubai does not necessarily translate exactly to Abu Dhabi.

I’ve learnt a lot as a result of this and two practical examples seem to stand out from within the candidate and client processes. Our interview structure is very different in the UAE and indeed within the UK compared to the one used by our German team.

Beyond this, there is also a difference in terms of the contractual structure of business relationships with clients when it comes to Vario assignments. Both of these examples have given me an additional perspective on how we do business and a key part of my role has been to share these experiences and provide learnings for the rest of the team.

In general, you have to find your way around a new environment for the first time, learn how work processes are organised and where you fit into the existing dynamic.

How are things going outside of the working week? 

I've already made it to the beach! I asked around a bit and was told that if I'm going to the beach, I should go to the so-called "Kite Beach". It's a longer walk though. I hadn't really realised how long Dubai is, from one end to the other. But the beach was really beautiful and just as you would imagine - white sand, crystal clear water, but it was still a bit too fresh for me to swim.

I’ve also been on a hiking trip in Ra's Al-Chaimah with some of the rest of the members of the Dubai office. It was a great day and we had lunch in the highest restaurant in the United Arab Emirates.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our Flexible Services business, please get in touch.