EY to scale legal managed services with acquisition of Riverview Law

Professional services giant EY is set to acquire legal practice Riverview Law.

The deal is part of a global expansion of the firm’s legal managed services arm, EY Law.

Chris Price, global head of alliances - tax, will become chief executive of EY Riverview Law once the transaction is complete.

The role will see him working closely with the Riverview Law leadership team to bolster the wider group’s cross-sector, multidisciplinary approach to legal services.

EY said the acquisition will scale its legal managed services offering and help clients increase efficiency, manage risk, improve service transparency and reduce costs of routine legal activities.

Chris Price explained: “There is a need for a greater range of service options in the legal market that provides the right service, with the right quality, at the right price to the legal functions of EY clients.

“I have yet to meet a general counsel function that is under employed; so providing a simple mechanism to assess tasks, assess the requisite skills to achieve those tasks and allocating internal and external advisor skillsets appropriately while helping the legal function to drive the maximum value and service quality is what we will seek to do.”

He added: “The acquisition of Riverview Law will help enable the creation of an EY service offering focused on doing just that.”

Riverview Law CEO Karl Chapman commented: “As part of EY, we will have even greater resources to help [clients] drive business outputs from their legal inputs.

“Put simply, we are excited by the next stage in our journey. We believe that the combination of the Riverview Law operating model, operating platform and people, alongside the EY brand, EY clients, existing legal services offering and global scale is a winning formula for the legal market.”

EY Law comprises over 2,200 law practitioners in member firms across 81 jurisdictions.

Riverview Law is currently based across offices in London, Manchester, Wirral and New Jersey.

The acquisition is expected to complete on August 31.