External legal services

The external legal services (ELS) contract allows agencies to procure the services of legal specialists outside of their internal teams. Below you can find information on what the contract does and does not cover, how to use the contract, and details on any features and costs included.

Contract updates

Changes were made to the external legal services contract and its Memorandum of Understanding in 2025. These changes related to terms for the engagement of barristers sole and AoG requirements regarding data protection. The contract can now also be accessed through our procurement platform, Procure Connect.

Procure Connect

What's covered

The contract can be used by agencies for specialist services or additional capacity for in-house government legal teams. It can also be used to outsource legal functions of small agencies over entire areas of law or for particular programmes of work and project teams.

The contract covers all external legal services in the following areas of law:

• banking and finance
• corporate and commercial
• employment
• environmental and resource management
• health and safety
• litigation
• property and construction
• public
• other (like health/medical, immigration, tikanga Māori and any area not contained in another area of law).

The Areas of law page has more details about what each area covers.

Areas of law

What’s not covered

The contract does not cover:

• services that are core Crown legal matters (other than those the Solicitor-General may direct to be exempt from the Cabinet Directions)
• services which the Attorney-General may direct to be treated as a core Crown legal matter in accordance with the Cabinet Directions
• any public prosecution, as defined in section 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011
• services provided by Barristers Sole, including King's Counsel (unless engaged by a panel provider to deliver services under a legal services order).

Core Crown legal matters are described in the Cabinet Directions for the conduct of Crown Legal Business 2016. They include:

• legal representation in any litigation to which the government is a party (with certain exclusions)
• legal advice to the Crown relating to:
  • protection of Crown revenue
  • enforcement of the criminal law
  • the exercise or scope of constitutional powers or duties of the Crown including in relation the Treaty of Waitangi or the Crown/Māori relationship, New Zealand’s international obligations and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
  • powers or duties of Law Officers of New Zealand
  • the lawfulness of actual or proposed exercise of a public power, duty or function.

The Cabinet Directions do not apply to:

• the Parliamentary Counsel Office
• the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives
• the Parliamentary Service
• Crown entities
• State-owned enterprises
• offices of Parliament, bodies listed in Schedules 4, 4A and 5 of the Public Finance Act 1989, local authorities, and other bodies corporate that exist to perform public functions or that are owned by the Crown or a public entity.

Cabinet directions for the conduct of Crown Legal Business 2016 – Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

If you are not sure if your requirement is a core Crown legal matter, contact the Crown Law Office for advice.

Crown Law Office

How it works

There are over 50 providers of various sizes on the contract. They offer external legal services under one or more areas of law. You can use any provider on the contract for any or all of the areas (or sub-areas) of law within the scope of this contract.

To use this contract, you first have to join. There is more information on the joining process in the section below.

Joining this contract

Once you have joined the contract, you will need to determine your requirements.

Then, you can directly source a provider from the contract, or shortlist providers before selection.

Once you have chosen a provider, use a Legal Services Order (LSO) to record the terms agreed. The LSO template is in the Contract documents section on the top right of this page.

New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) will ask agencies to complete provider performance surveys during the term of the external legal services contract.

More detail on the selection process, pricing approach, and what to include in an LSO is on the Using the external legal services contract page.

Using the external legal services contract

Procure Connect and External legal services

The AoG external legal services contract is also accessible through Procure Connect. While using Procure Connect, contracts are referred to as panels.

Procure Connect

If you already have an account on Procure Connect, you can navigate to the tool to begin the process. You can contact your account manager if you have any questions about the tool.

Features and benefits

This contract offers:

• Access to a comprehensive range of quality providers throughout New Zealand.
• Competitive rates and hourly rate comparisons, resulting in material savings compared to market rates.
• Regular opportunities for new providers to join the panel (every 2 years).
• Continuous performance management and improved provider performance data, based on agency responses to regular provider performance surveys. This data will help inform agencies’ selection of providers when direct sourcing.
• Consolidated reporting on external legal services spend.

Under this contract, providers offer a range of value-added services and are required to deliver particular broader outcomes.

Value-add services

Value-add services are offered free of charge by some panel providers to participating agencies. Agencies may request a provider to supply some or all of the value-add services they offer.

Value-add services may include:

• dedicated legal upskilling opportunities for the participating agency (like webinars, seminars, workshops, other learning opportunities)
• access to meeting and board rooms (including associated technology)
• access to the provider’s basic templates
• telephone hotline
• email hotline.

The provider may refuse to provide value-add services where they are not currently providing external legal services to the participating agency and any of the following also apply:

• the agency has not engaged the provider in the 24-month period prior to the date of the request
• the value of the services provided to the agency during the 12-month period prior to the date of the request is less than $10,000
• the provider is unable to provide the value-add services requested within the agency’s requested timeframe.

Joining this contract

To purchase external legal services using this contract, your agency or school first needs to join.

If this is the first AoG contract your organisation is joining, you’ll need to:

• check if you are eligible to join
• sign a non-disclosure agreement
• create a RealMe login (to access the joining documents below).

Find more detail on these 3 steps at Joining AoG contracts.

Joining AoG contracts

Once you have completed this process, or if you’re already using another AoG contract, the next step is to read:

• the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the external legal services contract
• the Master external legal services agreement (MSA). This details the rights and obligations of all parties in the contract. Your organisation needs to be aware of terms relevant to their procurement and use of the services.

If your agency agrees to the terms of the MoU, sign and submit the online joining form. The MoU and joining form are in the Joining documents section below. You need an agency login to access it.

Once we receive your joining form, we will be in touch to confirm that your agency or school is participating in the contract.

You can then begin purchasing external legal services using this contract.

Using the external legal services contract

Joining documents