The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has unveiled its new-look legal panel, with the number of external firms the organisation uses cut back from nine to five.

The nuclear clean-up group has signed up Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Pinsent Masons to its roster for the first time, while DLA Piper, Burges Salmon and Field Fisher Waterhouse have all been retained.

The NDA's decision to reduce the number of firms on its legal roster has seen former panel firms Norton Rose and Herbert Smith miss out after failing to be reappointed.

Other firms to miss out were Scotland's Burness and Brodies, as well as Cumbrian firms Cartmell Shepherd and HFT Gough & Co.

The review process kicked off in September with the NDA deciding to keep to just one central panel rather than the previous arrangement, which saw three separate panels tasked with competition and property and general advice.

The NDA ran a procurement process from December, initially receiving 30 expressions of interest. The organisation's in-house legal team, led by head of legal Robert Higgins, whittled that down to 14 firms, which were then invited to tender, with nine invited to interview.

Higgins commented: "We wanted the process to keep people interested in us by having a smaller panel so everybody has a good amount of work – having something like 15 firms on a panel is a waste of time."

The NDA is responsible for the clean-up of the UK's civil public sector nuclear sites, with the firms on the panel working closely on the decommissioning of obsolete Magnox reactors.