Last week we conducted an interview with two AI chatbots to see how well they knew Vario and the challenges facing our clients. Both had a basic understanding of these topics, but neither were exactly experts. Copilot cited its sources for where it got the information for its answers and in many cases the information was pulled directly from our website. This highlighted to us that it was time for an update to remind you exactly what Vario are, what we do and what type of clients we work with.

Below are some frequently asked questions about Vario, to help set out our stall as a business. In a way, this is what we would have wanted the chatbots to respond with had we have asked it these questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pinsent Masons Vario?

Vario is the Practice Group within Pinsent Masons that provides clients with alternative legal services.

The other 4 Practice Groups within Pinsent Masons are: Finance & Projects; Property; Risk Advisory Services; and Transactional Services.

What services does Pinsent Masons Vario offer?

Vario offers a range of professional services currently grouped into 5 distinct service lines:

1. Flexible Services
2. Managed Legal Services
3. Company Secretarial Services
4. Legal Project Management
5. Consulting: Process & Technology

Each of these services can be delivered individually, or as a cohesive offering to suit the needs of each client’s business.

What does Vario Flexible Services do?

Our Flexible Services offering provides high-quality, interim in-house legal support to clients using a consultant lawyer / contract lawyer model.

Our Account Management Team seek to match top flexible lawyers from our Vario Hub with clients when a business need has arisen or is expected to arise. This could be to resource an upcoming project, help manage peaks in workflow, or backfill a team absence or departure, or address a skillset gap.

What does Vario Managed Legal Services (MLS) do?

Our MLS offering blends the right resources at the right time (including lawyers who have worked in-house) to extend a client’s team and deliver legal services.

This offering is entirely scalable and is comprised of 4 primary solutions. These solutions are:

1. Legal Desk
2. Company Secretarial
3. Managed Projects
4. Managed Team

What does Vario Company Secretarial Services (Co Sec) do?

Our Co Sec offering helps clients to manage the creation, governance and management of legal entities. Our team of Chartered Company Secretaries and experienced Paralegals can do this either by placing a consultant within a client’s team, or by taking on matters and dealing with them as part of our own in-house team.

The key areas of work we help businesses with are:

1. Entity Management
2. Board Committee Meeting Administration
3. Registered Office Service
4. Company Incorporations

What does Vario Legal Project Management (LPM) do?

Our LPM offering applies the principles, processes and practices of project management to the delivery of legal services. Our dedicated legal project managers can improve the efficiency of legal delivery, through the application of best practice project management tools and techniques.

This offering can be provided via an integrated team member or a standalone function, but in both cases we offer three flexible levels of service: advise; support; and manage.

What does Vario Consulting: Process & Technology (CPT) do?

Our CPT offering helps to assess current processes, identify overlapping or duplicated activities and bring clarity to stakeholder responsibilities by taking a holistic approach to our consulting.

We work with clients to identify specific needs, uncover concerns and highlight priorities which will help inform their technology road-map and implementation plans. The focus is always for projects to be solution-led rather than technology-led, to provide the best possible service to our clients.

What type of clients does Pinsent Masons Vario work with?

As a part of Pinsent Masons, Vario’s client base is similar to that of the wider firm. We work with a wide range of corporate clients, from SME through to large multinationals and public sector organisations.

We also deploy our offering to assist the firm on ongoing matters where they can benefit from one or more of our alternative legal services.

What sectors does Pinsent Masons Vario operate within?

Vario, like Pinsent Masons mainly operates within 5 primary sectors:

1. Energy
2. Financial Services
3. Technology, Science & Industry
4. Infrastructure
5. Real Estate

What jurisdictions does Pinsent Masons Vario operate within?

Vario has a permanent presence in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE.

We also have partnership arrangements in place within the USA, South Africa and the Netherlands to allow us to support clients within these jurisdictions.

Conclusion

Over the last 11 years, Vario has grown and developed immensely as a business, and this doesn’t look set to change. In a year’s time, some of this information will likely be out of date, but the best way to see how we can help you business is to ask us.

If you’re interested in find out more about our service lines, you can do so here and reach out to the respective contacts via their service line pages.