Irwin Mitchell has launched a sector-focused strategy for its business legal services (BLS) division, alongside the introduction of a new firmwide bonus scheme.

The new strategy comes after a review led by former Thomas Eggar managing partner Vicky Brackett, who took over as BLS CEO in November, following the merger of Irwin Mitchell and Thomas Eggar in late 2015.

The six sectors the BLS division will now focus on are: manufacturing, technology, financial services, real estate, education and consumer services. Consumer services comprises retail, hotels, sport and leisure.

Each of the new sector groups has been given a budget and targets for new revenue, and will be led by a team including a business development (BD) head and a steering committee of partners and associates.

The sector groups have been tasked with bringing in new clients and expanding new service lines to existing clients. While they have been given a BD budget and a new revenue target, they do not have overall turnover and profit targets.

The sector groups will work alongside the firm's existing service lines which are real estate, corporate and commercial, banking and finance, employment, tax, IP, corporate crime/regulatory and litigation.

Irwin Mitchell is divided into two main divisions – BLS and personal legal services (PLS), which covers areas such as personal injury, family law, wills and trusts, and public law. The BLS division currently contributes about a quarter of the firm's total revenues, which stood at £221m in 2015-16.

According to Brackett, the aim of the BLS review is twofold – to win new clients and to provide clarity and focus for the firm's people.

"Our ambition is to grow; not only our profits, but more importantly the quality and range of our clients," she said.

Meanwhile, the new firmwide bonus, which will be based on team and individual performance, has been brought in to introduce more transparency in how staff are rewarded. Previously, the firm had different bonuses for different groups.

Brackett adds: "It is about helping employees understand what they need to do to get a bonus, and introducing more transparency around both team and individual objectives."

The focus on people comes after some significant partner losses for the BLS division during the past 18 months.

The firm was hit by a significant walkout in London last year when eight real estate partners left, with five joining Dentons, two joining Osborne Clarke and one joining Howard Kennedy. Earlier this year, its Leeds office saw the departure of local corporate head Philip Goldsborough and corporate partner James Foster to Shoosmiths.

Brackett says the firm is not anticipating any more significant departures.

"People will leave; they will be offered other opportunities. But I don't sense now that there will be a mass exodus," she says.

Speaking about the real estate team, she says: "They were a good team, that was a shame – their departure had an impact on revenue and profit. But some key people in that London team chose to stay, and together with the strong national real estate team and the legacy Thomas Eggar team, there is a strong base from which to build."

In May the firm hired a new head of real estate, Adrian Barlow, who was previously head of real estate at Pinsent Masons between 2014 and 2016.

Communicating the firm's goals to staff is a key part of the focus on people in the BLS division's new strategy.

"In bigger firms, engagement can be more of a challenge, in the sense that everybody can't know everything that is going on," she says.

"It is about being able to distill the vision and the strategy into digestible messages that everyone can understand. We have done a roadshow across the group to break that down to people so that they feel a part of it. If people understand why they are doing things, then they are keen to do them – and do them well."

The firm has also embarked on a 'talent mapping' exercise, with the aim of discovering areas that it needs to strengthen in terms of skillset, sector or geography.

"The business should not be engaging in lateral hiring solely for revenue," says Brackett. "We have a critical mass now and we need a strategic hiring programme to fill skills gaps to deliver our strategy."

Irwin Mitchell is also reviewing its brand and customer experience, with groups set up to look at areas such as pricing, litigation funding and after-the-event insurance. The firm is also hoping to position itself to advise clients within the wider political and economic context.

"We are trying to change the business to look at issues from our clients' perspective in the context of the economic and political change they are experiencing," Brackett adds.

She cites a report launched in May on the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation that the firm worked on with market research firm YouGov. According to Brackett, the report has led to 14 new client wins, and the cross-selling of new service lines into 25 existing clients.

"We want to cast forward five years at least to see what the market might look like from a technological perspective, a pricing perspective and a client need perspective. What will the business and legal landscape look like? That is the test we have given ourselves," Brackett concludes.