UK top 10 firm's consultancy arm eyes expansion into new service sectors following Tyco and DuPont work

Eversheds' nascent management consultancy arm has picked up work from around 14 of the law firm's key clients, including electronics company Tyco and chemicals firm DuPont, with the firm now looking to broaden its services beyond legal consulting.

Eversheds Consulting, which launched in September last year, has advised both companies' in-house legal teams on various areas, including the organisation of their records.

The consulting arm, which was created to provide legal management consultancy to the general counsel of FTSE 200 companies, has also advised in-house legal teams on issues such as risk and compliance and controlling costs in the legal team through methods such as outsourcing, company secretarial and health and safety matters.

To date it has worked with 15 clients, of which 14 were existing Eversheds clients, and recently teamed up with US consultancy Lumen to advise a US-based Japanese company on how to make its legal team more cost-efficient.

The business has grown from nine consultants to 12 since its launch and is now focused on bulking up in London, where only two of its full-time staff are currently based.

Eversheds innovation partner Graham Richardson (pictured), who oversees the business, said: "The bottom line is we are a large law firm with a lot of clients and most of our work has been for these clients. Part of what we are trying to achieve is winning new clients but the emphasis is on deepening our relationships with our current clients by offering them a broader range of services."

On the basis of its existing work, Eversheds is now also considering expanding its consulting advice beyond legal into areas more traditionally dominated by the likes 
of McKinsey.

Richardson added: "We've focused initially on law because we feel it's where our experience is more credible. Long term, however, we will be looking to grow and expand into other areas."