Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) is offering to provide lawyers from its Belfast volume work centre to clients as part of a new service to help in-house teams manage routine work.

The scheme will see teams of qualified lawyers and legal assistants seconded from the firm's Belfast office to clients requiring support on specific projects or matters involving high-volume contract reviews. 

The Belfast base – which opened in April 2011 – was set up to focus on reviewing and analysing large volumes of documents from major contentious work, notably in litigation, arbitration and regulatory investigations. 

Since March, it has also been carrying out due diligence and contract reviews on corporate transactions. 

Scott Cochrane, HSF UK head of corporate, said: "Corporate clients are increasingly looking to their lawyers for more innovative approaches to the management of due diligence and other document-intensive tasks, as well as for us to offer a wider range of creative solutions to alleviate the pressure on in-house legal teams – both in terms of price and resourcing."

The initiative comes as HSF has significantly expanded its flexible working resource in its Belfast base. 

The firm has now grown its 'Respond' scheme – set up earlier this year with 12 law graduates working as legal assistants to support permanent staff during busy periods – to 49 flexible members, including 13 qualified lawyers and 36 legal assistants. According to HSF, the Respond team will now be "fully integrated" with the rest of its Belfast offering.

Since its launch, the Belfast office has grown from 26 to 149 members of staff.