Operating since 2010, Provider Assist are Australia’s Aged Care Business Performance Specialists. They exist to ensure that every older Australian receives the care, dignity and quality of life they deserve by making sure aged care organisations have the tools, resources and knowledge to be able to do so.

The problem

Provider Assist’s Managing Director, Victoria Kelly got in touch with InCounsel in 2017 to see if we could assist in providing an outsourced general counsel to take on the growing legal requirements of the business. 

Previously Victoria had handled the legals for the company herself, utilising the services of an external law firm to assist. This was not working out however.

Victoria told us that “using a legal firm is proving very difficult as it's impossible to get anything done when they say it'll be done and they obviously have templates they like to use”.  Victoria wanted to utilise Provider Assist’s own voice in their legal documents and she was looking for a more agile response to the legal needs and questions of her an her team.

Consequently, Victoria reached out to us at InCounsel with the following request:

“I'd like someone to come in, understand the business and the way we do things, conduct a review of everything and make any changes required. Then I’d like them to be available to answer ad hoc questions or complete agreements for new services. I would love this person to have a company email address and to feel part of the team rather than things coming to me.”

Victoria felt that she needed someone to be available on an ongoing basis for possibly two days a week to handle the workload.

Having completed InCounsel’s online questionnaire and given us a phone briefing, we went to work to match a suitable panel lawyer with the Provider Assist business.  

The match

That match was Narissa, a senior corporate and commercial lawyer with over 10 years in-house experience. Narissa was formerly Legal Counsel at Simplot Australia where she was responsible for brands such as Birds Eye, Leggo's, Lean Cuisine, John West and more. She had also been Sole Counsel at Clarke Rubber Franchising and an associate at Gadens and MinterEllison before that.

Feeling far more comfortable working in an in-house environment but also seeking more flexibility in her week, Narissa set up on her own to provide interim general counsel services with particular emphasis on franchising, marketing and advertising, commercial contracts, and general commercial, legal & regulatory compliance. She was recommended to InCounsel to help broaden her network.

Narissa’s personality, her people skills and her positive commercial approach made her the ideal fit for the role. She was also based not far from Provider Assist’s head office. When she met with Victoria her qualities shone through and she was quickly contracted on a daily rate to take on Provider Assist’s general counsel work.

The outcome

“Narissa was exactly what we were looking for.” Victoria noted. “She had the right combination of in-house and private practice experience. She was able to get to grips with the way that our business worked and how we wanted to communicate to our clients and she had a great can-do commercial attitude”

Two years later Narissa still acts as the outsourced general counsel for Provider Assist. She operates on-call on an ad hoc basis that works out to roughly one day per week on average. She manages all Provider Assists legal requirements including privacy, IP and trademark issues, contract review and drafting and corporate structuring and the arrangement continues to work well for both parties.

“Provider Assist is a great company doing great things for aged care businesses in Australia” Narissa explained. “The people are a delight to work with and I am available to respond to and manage their legal needs either face to face or remotely and without the delays that can be the hallmark of a larger law firm.”

Victoria added “The outsourced general counsel service offered by InCounsel was perfect for our business at that time. There was no way that we had enough legal work to justify a full-time general counsel but it was obviously too much for our law firm to handle. Narissa proved the ideal solution and by using her we were able to confidently manage our legal risks, improve our processes, manage our costs and free up my time to get on with growing the business.”

Learn more

If you are keen to know more about this service or learn more about other lawyers providing the outsourced general counsel solution, you can read their stories or reach out to us here at InCounsel.

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