And Finally

Guidance on responsible contractual behaviour

There is now non-statutory guidance in this area too. On 7 May the Government issued, with little fanfare, nonbinding guidance on ‘responsible contractual behaviour’. The general approach that the Government wishes to see is that businesses should concentrate on the long term and, ‘act responsibly and fairly in the national interest in performing and enforcing their contracts, to support the response to Covid-19 and to protect jobs and the economy.’ Or, in other words, ‘bad behaviour will be bad for jobs and will impair our economic recovery’. In essence, the Government’s view is, if you can, hold off relying on these types of clauses. Don’t terminate unless you have no alternative. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that you should. Most notably, however, the guidance makes it clear that it doesn’t override ‘any specifi c support or relief available’ in any relevant contracts, such as any termination provisions. In eff ect, this non-binding, ‘please-play-nicely’ guidance is just that: nonbinding. Businesses are not obliged to follow it and, frankly, it remains to be seen to what extent, if at all, they will embrace it, despite its worthy intentions. From a legal point of view, failure to comply with it may have no to few legal consequences. In due course, the courts may look at this guidance when determining if a party has been reasonable in a contractual dispute or, indeed, they may decide not to pay any heed to it at all. At the moment, the legal risks of not following it seem very low.

What happens next?

The Bill is due to be fast-tracked through Parliament, and it is likely to become law before the end of June. Parliamentary scrutiny over this Bill is likely to be somewhat lacking and things might not get picked up by legislators that ought to be picked up if there were more time. There may well be some unexpected surprises down the line in how this law works. In the meantime, businesses may wish to review their position in supply chain eco-systems as their ability to utilise contractual protections they currently rely upon may soon be severely restricted.

Disclaimer

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is recommended that specifi c professional advice is sought before acting on any of the information given.

Simon McArdle

Simon is a Partner in the commercial team who specialises in a range of commercial contracts including large scale outsourcing arrangements, I.T. contracts, sponsorship and image rights arrangements and manufacturing and distribution agreements.

Simon regularly advises clients in a range of sectors including the retail, logistics, food, IT, health and automotive sectors.

... here is a round up of the topics, events and news that were not covered in this edition from Carolyn Coles, Society Manager.

by Carolyn Coles

As I type this it is hard to comprehend just how our lives as we knew them , and those of our fellow citizens worldwide have been impacted by this Pandemic. The changes that have taken place so quickly, will no doubt take months, even years for us to regain any recognisable level of normality.

We all have had our own particular challenges to deal with and work through, and I am solicitous to the fact that as manager of Northamptonshire Law Society, I have to continue to present a “business as normal” pretence.

So with this is mind, I will be continuing to arrange training events over the next few months via Zoom . If you would like to secure a place, or have a specific topic you would like me to facilitate let me know via email – sec.nls@outlook.com or give me a call on 07543662572, or 01604 881154. Please also let me know if you wish to add anything to the bulletin, it would be good to hear from you!

Wishing you all the best of Luck as we venture back into our various workplaces.

Stay safe,

Best wishes

Carolyn Coles

Carolyn Coles - Society Manager

Email: sec.NLS@outlook.com

Office Number: 01604 881154 My mobile: 07543 662572

The SRA expects its regulated law contact details and set up a similar text alert fi rms to ‘continue to meet the high system to ours. We use intellisoftware.co.uk. standards the public expect’ and Hardware & software – In the run up to have ‘appropriate contingency lockdown and with the media getting Northamptonshire Law Society plans in place for disruption’ during the coronavirus pandemic. With that in mind, it should be no surprise that as the largest combined legal cashiering and payroll bureau in the UK, we at Quill have always been hot on our business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) planning. And for good reason: if you were the back offi ce for 7,000 lawyers and paralegals, with annual billing in the order of £1 billion or responsible for generating 8,000 payslips on behalf of various employers with accompanying transfer of over £54 million to employees’ bank accounts, wouldn’t you be hot on it too? increasingly excited – with hindsight, rightly so – we decided to our examine workingfrom-home arrangements team by team. This helped us to iron out a few problems with regards to equipment at home. It was only after we closed our offi ces that we realised one of our failings. We’d earmarked a pool of laptops that were put to good use during the trials but we hadn’t accounted for the fact we’d need every item in one pool simultaneously during the real-life event. A basic error! Anyway, the problem was easily solved and we’re repurposing our hardware replacement strategy to a laptop-only model going forwards as we may end up with more home working,

As we’re now living and working through fewer desks in the offi ce and more hot desking; diffi cult times, this forethought is serving something which is looking to become a our clients well. I’m sure none of us could plausible possibility for many organisations. have made a New Year’s Eve forecast that we’d have an international pandemic on the scale of coronavirus within 100 days, and yet here we are navigating the biggest health crisis the world has ever experienced. Is your own infrastructure fi t for purpose? Not only hardware but also software? For the latter – software – cloud systems have become a necessity these past weeks. That’s exactly what we off er – a web-based

Our contingency planning has most defi nitely complete practice management system. benefi ted our clients as we’ve helped them Even better, to help accommodate audits and maintain the compliance standards which the reviews, it’s provided with a free accountant’s

SRA and other regulators demand on behalf licence. Clients using Interactive can of consumers. That, coupled with our legal empower both their staff and accountant to accounts, practice and document management work anytime, anyplace, any device with a applications all hosted in the cloud, has meant straightforward online login thereby eliminating

Quill and our clients have had a relatively simple any impact from unforeseeable disaster. switch to a work-from-home model. There’s been no service disruption whatsoever. Our own cashiering team utilise Interactive to manage clients’ accounts as well. Whether

Of course, our industry regulator admits you need cloud access to your matters, these are ‘mitigating circumstances’ and documents, legal forms, bundling tools or acknowledges that some processes – fi nancial accounts, Interactive’s got you covered. management duties, in the main – may not be completed on time. As such, a level of leniency is aff orded around submission deadlines. Phone system – Phones are the bane of every company but essential for communicating with existing and would-be consumers.

However, the SRA maintains its absolute Fortunately, we’d moved our phone system to focus on protection of client monies. the cloud several years ago. Clever functionality

Ultimately, cashiering tasks themselves still facilitated the diversion of our offi ce phones to need to be done. This means you need to corresponding mobiles or landlines at home. have a contingency plan just in case we hit a second spike, or if your cashier is unable to work for health or shielding reasons. Now we’re enhancing our phone system by installing a soft phone on every laptop or PC. Together with a headset, every

We’ve put together some practical notes member of staff has our entire phone on the actions we took – and might well system functionality and address book to still need to take – to keep our software hand. We can receive and transfer your servicing 7,000 legal professionals and our calls from home to home more readily. outsourcing staff servicing legal cashiering and payroll compliance. Hopefully you can draw inspiration for your own BCDR reviews: But we mustn’t forget the loyalty and dedication of our staff typifi ed by our receptionist – Lynda. She’s the glue binding everyone together across

SMS system – We use an SMS alert system our offi ces. Being rather shy of techie things like to send messages by text to any group of soft phones, on lockdown she packed up her managers, teams, offi ces or role-based trusty phone kit and, with some careful labelling, employees. SMS is still the easiest and quickest re-assembled it on her dining room table! cross-platform messaging tool and, with the right SMS system, you can alert staff by job title or location to attend an offi ce or stay at home. Take our phone system advice and check out gamma.co.uk. It’s an infrastructure investment that’s proven to be worth

Even before the pandemic was a pandemic, every single penny at Quill. we took the opportunity to double check our staff ’s personal details were present and correct – that’s mobile numbers, next of kin, etc – and, of course, our database was fully up-to-date and GDPR compliant. Outsourcing services – Knowing that we’re the fi nancial compliance backbone for so many practices and the payroll service provider for many businesses too, getting our staff socially isolated urgently whilst remaining in direct

With a return to physical premises unlikely until contact with clients, colleagues and team sometime later in the summer, if you haven’t leaders was paramount. And with the SRA already done so, now’s the ideal time to check stressing the need for fi rms to put contingency or collate your own list of employees with latest measures in place, it might be somewhat easy 34 www.northamptonshirelawsociety.co.uk

By Julian Bryan, Managing Director, Quill

to predict that we’ve had considerable interest in our outsourced cashiering services during the coronavirus outbreak. The same applies to our outsourced payroll and typing services. The sudden move to home working has been quite a shock for certain individuals and companies. While Zoom has been a popular choice for many organisations, we’ve opted for Google Meet which allows for meetings to be open-ended, mimicking an open-door policy. To try and keep morale high amongst Quill employees, we moved our regular staff ‘News, Views and Eats’ updates to Google Meet format and even held a two-hour all-staff AGM online at the end of April. Emotions ran high in the early days as we acclimatised to the new ways of working. As ‘accountable to you’ is our brand strapline and embedded into our ethos, we made a commitment to top up salaries for any furloughed staff , sent everyone some Easter chocolate and have branded facemasks in the pipeline! The bottom line is this: we’ve always had fully operational legal cashiering, payroll and typing bureaus on hand throughout lockdown. If you’re working on a skeleton staffi ng level, or looking for a contingency plan short- or long-term, we can bridge the gap for as long as required or be retained on standby in case a future need arises. Insurance – Early on, we reviewed our insurance cover regarding empty offi ces and home working. Our brokers, romeroinsurance.co.uk, have been truly fantastic and advised us to regularly inspect our offi ces to make sure our policy stays valid. Insurance cover has also been extended to address company-owned computer equipment being used by employees at home. Is your insurance policy suitable for your new set up? Perhaps a check in with your own broker is due? There are other practicalities to bear in mind at this time too. As per all of the above, enabling remote working is a key priority at the moment. When Boris told us on that fateful Monday evening that we should work at home with immediate eff ect, we were ready. Decamping to home offi ces was an orderly event. We activated our well-rehearsed BCDR plans beginning with an SMS alert to staff initiating migration to home working within a 24-hour period. Which is exactly what we did. The next stage is to begin planning for our collective returns to all of our offi ces. The Law Society has issued a framework, based on governmental guidance, which is about conducting a risk assessment and protecting your staff within the on-site environment. Read the lawsociety.org.uk/topics/coronavirus/ practical-framework-for-law-fi rms-and-solepractitioners-on-return-to-the-offi ce web page.

Get in touch with Quill to strengthen your BCDR plan today. Email info@quill.co.uk, call 0161 236 2910 or visit www.quill.co.uk.

Julian Bryan joined Quill as Managing Director in 2012 and is also the Chair of the Legal Software Suppliers Association. Quill has been a leading provider of legal accounting and case management software, and the UK’s largest supplier of outsourced legal cashiering services, to the legal professional for over 40 years.