Eversheds has opened up a bespoke MBA for its junior lawyers as part of a new learning programme rolled out earlier this month.

The new Commercial Academy will see a number of optional courses, including a 'mini MBA', opened up to the firm's junior lawyers. Some of the courses will be compulsory for lawyers in certain practice groups.

The courses will be taught by both internal and external providers and will last around a month each. Lawyers with up to four years' post-qualification experience across all UK and international offices will be eligible.

In addition to the MBA, courses include financial reporting and decision-making (which will be taught by commercial and financial consultancy group MacIntyre Hudson); commercial relationships and networking; marketing and communications; and an introduction to business development.

The MBA, which is currently running between September and October 2010, has 100 lawyers signed up. It will be taught by external provider Rupert Vernalls using Harvard Business School case studies and materials.

Vernalls is a UK-qualified lawyer who headed up Osborne Clarke's commercial law practice in Silicon Valley and worked as in-house intellectual property counsel for the Vodafone Group. He has an MBA and has lectured at the US Department of Commerce and has worked on Bath's MBA and for Harvard Business Online.

Eversheds human resources director Angus Macgregor said: "We have devised a programme of training to develop commercial business lawyers from a junior level, with skills fully aligned to the firm's strategy. Lawyers are increasingly required to expand their capabilities; they are not simply fee earners but also business winners, client managers and team players."