White & Case is launching a new public company advisory group in London, in a bid to broaden its client base by offering the full 'life cycle' of advice for companies going from private to public.

The new group, which will focus on providing company secretarial and corporate governance advice to plc clients, will work alongside the firm's private company team, which is led by City corporate partner Emma Parr and was previously known as the portfolio company group.

City M&A partner Patrick Sarch is overseeing the venture, with fellow corporate partner Dominic Ross – who joined last year from Ashurst – also heavily involved.

The US firm is hiring in a senior associate to play a lead operational role for the new group, which will be staffed by lawyers charged out to clients at lower rates than usual. Additional hires are expected further down the line, but in the interim it will share resources with Parr's three-lawyer team, as well as using some of White & Case's existing transactional lawyers on a flexible basis.

While Parr's team, which has been operating since 2011, focuses on companies acquired by private equity houses, the public company team can step in at a later stage for these clients and will also target new clients of its own.

"When a company is bought by a private equity firm, prior to the completion of the deal Emma and her team guides it through its existence as a portfolio company. When it IPOs and becomes a big listed company or undergoes a high-yield financing, my team gets involved," said Sarch.

Parr added: "We wanted to replicate our clients, which have both deal teams and operationally-focused portfolio management teams. We have set up a dedicated team, which is less distracted by high-tempo deals, to give clients top-tier service whether they are in a deal cycle or not."

The targets for those working within the public company team will be built around attracting new clients rather than hitting billable hour targets and, according to Sarch, the venture offers junior lawyers an alternative career path – one without the demands of long and unpredictable hours on "high-octane" M&A deals, but that could still ultimately lead to partnership.

Describing it as "a third path" between deal lawyer and professional support lawyer, Sarch said: "The expertise we are looking for isn't a conventional transactional associate on a traditional partner track, but that doesn't preclude these individuals from ultimately becoming a full equity partner if successful.

"The model is different – I'm looking to incentivise people based on the number of clients they win and maintain – so it will be possible to accommodate people who are ambitious but in a slightly different way to deal junkies. If they are successful they will be very valuable and can achieve real career progression – for example, becoming a counsel or partner.

"A lawyer who is really interested in governance or company secretarial matters, for example, is not someone who would normally be thought of as a prime M&A deal associate. But that is exactly what we are looking for."

Sarch said the team has already won one new client, despite the fact it has yet to formally launch.

The firm is hoping to replicate the success of Parr's team, which has been running since 2011, and now works with about 28 portfolio companies, including retailers Oasis, Warehouse and Coast, providing advice across the full life cycle from take-private, to refinancings, to M&A or IPOs.

The team aims to provide a more efficient service for clients by using paralegals for straightforward day-to-day portfolio company work, and the public advisory team will offer a similar service, helping with everything from filing reviews, to anti-slavery compliance and corporate governance.

Sarch added: "Like many firms, White & Case is very transactionally-focused and clients can find us less good value for the ongoing continual obligations, but that's really what general counsel need. Having a team of people who like doing that, who are good at it and for whom it's the primary focus, is a new level of engagement.

"Part of my raison d'etre is to anchor White & Case's corporate practice more firmly in the mainstream London M&A market and build a bigger plc client base. As part of that, we want to cover and support our existing and future clients more efficiently on an ongoing basis."

Sarch said he and the team will also work closely with White & Case's existing public company advisory groups in New York – where public company specialist Dov Gottlieb joined from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett last year – and Frankfurt, under equity capital markets partner Lutz Kramer, as well as with the firm's lawyers in Paris and Milan.