Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has agreed to use a contract lawyering business as the firm begins to see an upturn in work levels.

The magic circle law firm, which currently operates a fee earner to partner leverage of 3:1, is considering a number of options to maintain that level when commercial activity resumes, including contract lawyers, outsourcing and the firm's alumni network.

Freshfields will turn to contract lawyers to temporarily cover work in across a range of practices, although the firm said that it had no immediate plans to use the service as market demand is not yet high enough.

Freshfields London head Tim Jones told Legal Week: "We need high quality people that can do the kind of work that our clients are bringing to us – quality assurance is the key and we will work hard to vet the people coming in with [contract lawyering business] ItsMyLaw. The people that do the work should be as good as the people we have on our books."

ItsMyLaw has so far established a pool of 50 lawyers of varying levels of experience across a broad range of practice areas to be contracted out to law firms.

ItsMyLaw director John Cullen added: "Having talked to management at firms of all sizes, the common theme is utilisation rates. When they get to a certain level they need to think about gearing up; we are trying to encourage firms to think about the alternatives in advance so they can get the right expertise on board as and when they need it, without increasing fixed cost leverage."

In a separate move, Freshfields is in the process of setting up a pool of former fee earners to use on transactions alongside contract lawyers.