Linklaters is set to open a lower cost legal centre in the southern Italian city of Lecce.

The magic circle firm is expected to open in the city in September with an initial team of five lawyers, but this figure is set to increase to 10 within a year.

The news was broken in an interview with Linklaters Milan managing partner Andrea Arosi by Italian legal magazine Legal Community.

The new office will handle lower cost work, taking advantage of reduced overheads in the region.

The lawyers will handle paralegal-type work, although there is not an equivalent paralegal role in the Italian legal system.

Linklaters currently has two offices in Italy – one in the capital Rome and another in the northern business and financial hub Milan.

According to its website, the firm has 10 partners, seven counsel and 46 associates in Italy, with all of these lawyers listed as working in the firm's Milan office.

The firm already has low cost hubs in Colchester in the UK and in Warsaw in Poland. The Colchester office handles low cost legal work as home of the firm's paralegal hub, as well as housing business support functions such as payroll, marketing services and HR.

In 2015, the firm moved 10 finance roles to Warsaw following the end of an outsourcing contract with business technology consultant Infosys.

In 2016, the firm moved to new, enlarged offices in the Polish capital, taking 4,463 sq m of floor space in Q22 Tower.

A number of law firms have downsized their presence in Italy in recent years, with firms including Ashurst, Simmons & Simmons and McDermott Will & Emery all closing bases in Rome during the past two years.

Dentons, typically, is an outlier, having launched in Milan with a team from DLA Piper in 2015 and opening an office in Rome in 2016.

Picture credit: Shaun Merritt