DAC Beachcroft has become the latest firm to offer freelance staff on a temporary basis to clients with a new initiative focused on employment and HR work.

The scheme, called The People Pool, currently comprises more than 25 employment lawyers and HR consultants – including non-lawyers – who will work on a flexible basis for clients during busy periods.

The majority of the lawyers and consultants have either been partners at other commercial law firms or have worked with DAC Beachcroft in the past.

The initiative, which will also draw on the services of lawyers directly employed by the firm, sees DAC Beachcroft agree a fee with clients for the work they want done, with the firm then managing the process. Consultants will work on a range of cases including designing and implementing reward schemes, organisation-wide changes to terms and conditions or pensions, employee engagement programmes and large-scale employment litigation.

DAC Beachcroft employment partners Simon Lambert and Nick Chronias will oversee the service. Lambert told Legal Week: "A lot of our clients have reduced the size of their workforce, including their HR teams. The People Pool uses employment lawyers and HR consultants in tandem, providing clients with an attractive solution – it takes away the burden of managing delivery of the work and they also receive the benefit of very experienced practitioners. This is proving to be very popular with clients."

The firm hopes to expand the pool to cover other practices in response to client demand.

The news comes after Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) last month beefed up its pioneering Lawyers on Demand (LoD) business by adding a 'pay-as-you-go' service, which will give clients access to legal help remotely to manage surges in workload.

The new operation, known as LoD On Call, will operate as a sister service to BLP's existing Lawyers on Demand business, which is being rebranded as LoD On Site.

Since BLP launched its original service in 2007, several rival firms – including Eversheds, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Pinsent Masons – have announced similar initiatives in response to a sector-wide push by clients to cut costs.