Legal Services Market Engagement

Network Rail is engaging the market for the supply of a full range of legal services to support the delivery of its objectives for the period from 1 April 2026 – 31st March 2031.

Network Rail is striving to deliver a simpler, better, greener railway. It is a time of change for the rail industry, and we need to continue to support the day-to-day operations of Network Rail while also looking to the future.

Network Rail is set up as central functions and geographically based Regional Business units with legal teams in each area. Prospective suppliers will be expected to work with us to provide a first-class service to both the central functions and Regional Businesses.

The proposed structure for the new legal panel is:

1. Core Lot (England & Wales) – four full-service suppliers
2. Core Lot (Scotland) – two full-service suppliers
3. Specialist Lots – two suppliers per lot

Core Lots

These firms will be expected to provide legal service capability across the full range of legal disciplines, subject to the specialist areas set out below. Our requirements will include a mix of general instructions, commoditised and project work including but not limited to the following disciplines:

• Commercial Opportunities
• Commercial
• Commercial Property
• Competition
• Construction
• Contracts
• Corporate Governance and Company Secretarial
• Corporate Transactions
• Employment
• Health Safety and Environment
• Information Law including data protection
• Litigation & Dispute Resolution
• Planning & Highways
• Procurement
• Projects and Project Finance
• Property Development
• Public and Administrative Law
• Renewable Energy
• Telecommunications

Treasury work is excluded from this procurement.

Additionally, Network Rail is looking to appoint two firms for each of three specific specialist lots: (1) Rail Regulatory, (2) Health, Safety and Environment (advice for significant incidents) and (3) Roll A Parliamentary Agents. It is anticipated that these specialist lots will be mainly used in England & Wales.

Firms will be able to bid for as many of the lots (core and specialist) as they have the capability and capacity to service properly.

Network Rail will be seeking value for money for the taxpayer in relation to the services procured. Network Rail would like to encourage prospective bidders who are forward thinking and open to innovative ideas to meet our requirements and who will work with us to deliver efficiencies in our service provision. The legal services teams are focused on providing the best possible service for our business and as such, we would expect interested suppliers to have customer focus at the heart of their delivery model.

While Network Rail values knowledge gained working with the Rail industry, we are keen to engage with firms with experience of working in other regulated industries.

Network Rail will be carrying out a market engagement event on 2nd December 2024 via Teams and we will be seeking feedback on our proposals through a survey following the event.

If you would like to be involved in the procurement going forward, then please register on this link where you will need to provide contact details and indicate the lots that you are interested in.

forms.office.com/e/2Kip7gCtXy ↗