Reed Smith will expand its Pittsburgh-based legal and business process support team to offer greater assistance to lawyers in its European offices.

The team will be restructured to provide additional document, pricing and administrative services to lawyers in the EMEA region, and is being led by the firm's head of client value Vince Cordo.

Around 17 Pittsburgh-based staff will provide real-time support to the seven offices in the region, of which London is the largest.

Cordo is also recruiting a project manager and a pricing manager in the City as part of the transition, which will see the dedicated EMEA team work adjusted shift patterns in line with their colleagues across the Atlantic.

"Our support teams work in tandem with lawyers in our global network, and often at partner level this can be quite demanding," commented Cordo. "We need to increase the support we offer while ensuring the hours worked by our people on the ground in Pittsburgh don't burn them out."

The firm also plans to expand its support for its Asian offices, though Cordo estimates this will take place towards the end of 2014.

Reed Smith's 'global customer centre' launched in 2009 and is home to a  team of around 200 staff – including around 80 lawyers – that provides a mixtures of administrative and legal support, including e-discovery, document review and accounting.

The firm also regularly seconds administrative staff to clients' in-house teams to support with budgeting and cost management.

This year, Cordo will also launch a project management course for all associates in Reed Smith's global network. The course will train junior lawyers to estimate, budget and manage the pricing of legal work.

"We've already rolled out the training for partners, which has been very successful," he added.