Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) is set to vote on spinning off its much-touted Lawyers on Demand (LoD) service, with the firm expected to retain a majority stake in the business.

If the spin-off is approved by partners, LoD, which provides clients with freelance lawyers on a temporary basis, will operate as a standalone business. A vote is expected to take place in the coming weeks.

BLP is likely to retain an 80% stake, with co-founders Jonathan Brenner and Simon Harper splitting the remaining ownership of the business, which posted turnover of £5m in 2010-11, and is expected to take in £7.5m for 2011-12. Technology and outsourcing partner Harper may step down from BLP's partnership to focus on managing the business.

There are no current plans for LoD to move out of BLP's London Bridge premises, but the separation will allow the business to be viewed more independently by the market.

LoD, which was launched in 2008 by Harper and Brenner, the former co-founder of recruitment consultancy ZMB, currently has around 100 qualified lawyers on its books.

The service provides locum lawyers on an ad hoc basis to BLP as well as in-house teams at banks and corporates including Orange, BSkyB, Channel 4 and Cisco. It has also had requests from a number of law firms within the UK top 100.

Harper said: "LoD has proved to be a very successful business, so it is important for us to always be thinking about what the next step should be. Its relationship with BLP is crucial and we are in no way planning for that to end, but in the current legal landscape it is about giving LoD space to grow beyond its adolescence and thinking about how we should develop in the market."

One BLP partner commented: "People know that LoD was borne out of BLP and separating it will allow it to stand as an independent entity. It has such great potential to develop and spinning it off will give it the chance to grow and flourish and take more of its own decisions."