Legal Services

The key objectives of the Legal Services Office are:

• To be the sole contact point for legal queries in the University
• To save the University time and money by handling legal queries
• To increase accessibility to legal advice within the University
• To help the University manage and minimise its legal risk
• To provide training and updates to University staff on legal issues

The Legal Services Office has appointed a panel of external solicitors to ensure that the University receives the best quality legal advice. Our aim is to provide an efficient and cost effective service for all legal matters, dealing internally wherever possible and liaising with our external panel if necessary to ensure a seamless service to Colleges and Professional Services.

Unfortunately the Legal Services Office cannot act on behalf of students. If you are a student and require legal advice, please contact The Guild. 

Requests for Legal Advice

Because of the need to ensure that all our instructions are approved by the University, and in order to retain legal privilege, the solicitors in the Legal Services Office can only be instructed by authorised University personnel.

Therefore, if you require advice from the solicitors in the Legal Services Office you should first discuss with your Dean of College, College Manager or Head of Service who will then contact us to confirm the instructions. In relation to employment matters, these must be raised first with the Personnel team who will then instruct Legal Services if necessary.

Requests for Research Contracts

The Legal Services Office offers a full service to Schools for the negotiation and signature of non-disclosure agreements, Studentship Agreements, Collaboration Agreements, Material Transfer Agreements and other research related contracts. Many requests for agreements can be made quickly and easily via our web-pages.

For research contract queries, please contact: legalservices@exeter.ac.uk

Training

In conjunction with our Panel Law firms Legal and Insurance Services is able to offer training and guidance on a wide range of legal topics of interest across the University. If there is an area of law where you think it would be useful to have some training, please contact us at: legalservices@exeter.ac.uk as we are always looking for new topics.

Additionally, we are able to provide bespoke internal training in some areas. We run a biannual "Introduction to Contracts" course through the Learning and Development team. The course is aimed at staff across Schools and Professional Services who have to deal with contracts as part of their role. The training covers various types of contract that are commonly encountered within the University and will use practical examples.