92295702-c291-4b36-9a84-0290309733b5CMS Cameron McKenna and its European alliance firms are set to roll out a training course for partners and associates, in the latest effort to increase unity across the network.

From next March, partners and associates at all nine CMS firms can sign up for a series of week-long training courses run by business school IMD.

The course, aimed at boosting lawyers' commercial knowledge, will be run in modules, similar to a mini-MBA, through the group's existing 'CMS academy'.

The firms will run separate courses for junior associates, senior associates and partners, with only selected numbers of lawyers initially attending. However, it is expected that all lawyers will finish at least one of the courses in the future.

The firms will initially run four courses a year.

Camerons chief operating officer Tony Wright – who is overseeing the scheme with managing partner Duncan Weston – said: "This is part of a wider initiative to bring the firms together. We want to be able to offer our clients and prospective lawyers a quality that is over and above [our competitors] so ultimately we want this to be something everyone goes through as a right of passage."