Eversheds has unveiled plans to launch its contract lawyer business, Agile, in Hong Kong and Singapore next month as it expands its consulting arm.

Agile is set to be rolled out in Hong Kong and Singapore in July.

The pool of lawyers for clients in Asia is expected to number between 20 and 30, according to Eversheds Consulting head Graham Richardson (pictured). The majority of these will need to have local language skills, though they will not necessarily have to be fluent Mandarin speakers.

"Everyone's moving in to contract lawyering in the UK, but it's a much quieter market out in Hong Kong," Richardson told Legal Week. "We will start small and build from there… Success for us would be to have 10 to 15 placements. It's fairly small but that would still equate to a £1m business."

In the UK Agile currently has approximately 57 lawyers out on contract, out of a total of 250.

Along with the Hong Kong and Singapore launches, Richardson is also planning to roll out a compliance-specific contract lawyer group to sit within Eversheds' recently launched financial services regulatory compliance team.

That pool is expected to have around 30 lawyers in the UK with roughly eight on placements at any one time.

Meanwhile, the firm has also announced the launch of a new service for in-house legal teams to manage high-volume, low-risk work called Eversheds Ignite, which will form another branch of the Eversheds Consulting business.

Consultants from Eversheds will spend time with in-house teams to decide what high-volume processes can be outsourced to the firm before allowing the client to remotely manage these on a web-based system developed by Eversheds.

Eversheds Ignite will initially support clients on low-risk commercial contracts and related work including statements of work, non-disclosure agreements, renewals and extensions, short-form agreements and lower-value supplier contracts.

The firm said it would "guarantee cost savings" to clients using the service.

Richardson added: "Unlike other law firms we have our own consulting team that works exclusively for in-house legal functions, helping them with process improvement, structure, strategy and technology solutions. Clients of Eversheds Ignite will fully benefit from this expertise in receiving a bespoke and fully relevant service."

The firm is looking at extending the range of services in the future depending on client demand.

The Eversheds Consulting venture was first launched in 2010 to advise general counsel on procurement, compliance, processes and record management matters.

The business has a revenue target of £11.5m for 2015, which it is expected to exceed, according to Richardson.

For more on law firm consultancies see our feature later this week.