Eversheds is set to launch its consulting business in Dublin to take advantage of Ireland's continued EU membership.

Graham Richardson, the partner in charge of the firm's consulting business, said that it had lost a piece of work for a European client in the wake of the vote for Britain to leave the EU, with the Brexit vote being given as a reason.

"We lost a piece of work last week and one of the reasons given was Brexit," he said.

The firm now plans to launch its consulting business in its Dublin office, to take advantage of the fact that Ireland will retain its EU membership, giving the consulting business a base with the EU.

He also said that an Irish launch would give the consulting business greater access to the Irish market, where the firm has already carried out a number of mandates for clients.

"We have delivered projects there already for financial institutions and big PLCs, we have a good working relationship with our Dublin office and there is a significant market and we don't see that there is any competition over there," Richardson said.

Richardson said that the plan is to expand its consulting business to Ireland by September, with a small team in Dublin led by litigation partner Pamela O'Neill supported by the firm's existing offering in London and Cardiff.

The firm expanded consulting to Asia in 2015 with openings in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Eversheds consulting, which launched in 2010, provides management consultancy to in-house legal teams, advising on compliance, controlling costs, outsourcing and company secretarial issues.

Consulting is one arm of the firm's alternative legal offerings which also include Agile – its contract lawyer business, Ignite – its legal outsourcing business and a financial services consulting arm which launched in 2015.

According to Richardson the collected businesses generated approximately £10m of revenue in 2015-16 and its target for 2016-17 is £15m.