Deloitte names Jack Diggle Head of Legal Management Consulting

Deloitte Legal has appointed Jack Diggle as its new leader of Legal Management Consulting. Diggles arrival coincides with the appointment of Partner Craig Conte and Director Tom Birdseye, and follows the recent installation of Emily Foges to head up its Legal Managed Services business.

The Big Four, consisting of Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and EY, have shown their ability to enter new markets and consolidate share, and in recent years the quartet have been utilising this experience to try and forge a path into the UK’s legal market. By leveraging practice areas they already serve, the Big Four have gained market share at a rapid pace by providing legal services in tax, finance, M&A and labour.

PwC’s expansion saw it acquire NewLaw, a legal services business that promises to help companies “optimise [their] legal function”, while EY has made a duo of splashy acquisitions in the past two years, including its purchase of Riverview. In 2019, meanwhile, KPMG also expanded its services, unveiling details of a new UK legal consultation service “to address the rapidly changing requirements of in-house lawyers,” to add to similar initiatives in Australia, Germany and Switzerland.

Globally, Deloitte Legal is made up of more than 2,500 professionals operating in more than 80 countries, including more than 250 people in the UK. It delivers technology-enabled legal solutions in areas such as employment, litigation, corporate and commercial and immigration, while hosting more than 85 client-facing practicing lawyers.

Now, as Deloitte works to keep pace with its fierce rivals, and maintain its position as a disruptor of legal services, the firm has announced an overhaul of its Legal Management Consulting team.

Jack Diggle joins Deloitte Legal as Head of Legal Management Consulting; taking responsibility for expanding Deloitte Legal’s offerings in this space by developing new capabilities and building on Deloitte Legal’s existing technology, change and operations teams. Diggle was previously Vice President and Global Head of Consulting at alternative legal services provider Elevate Services, having also headed up legal transformation operations at Barclays, where he lead the strategic change agenda for its in-house legal department.

Commenting on his arrival, Diggle said, “General Counsel and legal departments are facing multiple challenges: a heightened regulatory environment, increased workloads and the acceleration of new digitally-enabled, agile operating models. By focusing on people, processes and technology, it is possible for legal and contracts teams to work in a smarter way to meet the challenges that lie ahead. I am looking forward to building on Deloitte Legal’s experience in this space and helping our clients’ legal operations.”

New leadership

In addition, Craig Conte and Tom Birdseye will be joining as Partner and Director respectively, and will work to help build out Deloitte Legal’s consultancy offerings to in-house legal teams, contracting functions and law firms. Conte is an expert in contract management and consulting using technology, as well as a qualified lawyer with more than 20 years of experience spanning a number of US law firms and geographies.

Birdseye meanwhile also boasts more than 20 years of experience in legal management consulting, specialising in change and transformation. Most recently he was head of EMEA consulting at Elevate and prior to this he was global head of change management at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. He will now focus on expanding Deloitte Legal’s work with both in-house legal teams and law firms seeking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. 

Michael Castle, UK Managing Partner at Deloitte Legal, commented on the arrivals, “Today’s world requires a new approach to the delivery of legal services. Now more than ever, legal departments are having to address the challenge of dealing with increasing complexity and demand with the same or fewer resources. Jack, Craig and Tom have a wealth of experience between them which will help these departments and contracting teams rethink their operating models, achieve greater efficiencies and increase the value they deliver back to the business.”

The appointments follow the firm’s hiring of Emily Foges to head up its Legal Managed Services business, announced earlier in the summer. Foges joined Deloitte Legal in June, following four years as CEO of Luminance Technologies, an artificial intelligence platform for the legal profession. There, Foges excelled in building a service to the legal sector, overseeing the implementation of legal technology to more than 200 law firms and in-house teams across 40 countries.