Ashurst has hired Chris Georgiou, the chief executive of Fieldfisher's alternative legal services platform Condor, in a bid to expand its own offering.

Georgiou is set to join the Anglo-Australian firm as a partner and co-head of Ashurst Advance –  which includes the firm's low-cost centre in Glasgow – alongside Mike Polson.

The hire marks a return to Ashurst for Georgiou, who was previously a securities and derivatives partner at the firm before leaving in 2016. Georgiou joined Fieldfisher in January 2017 when it launched Condor, which offers a range of lower-cost technology and process-driven services including automated trading documentation and data analytics.

Ashurst's own service innovation offering, Ashurst Advance, was set up in 2016 to offer clients lower-cost services through its low-cost centre in Glasgow, project and process managers, and new technology offerings. It currently operates in Glasgow, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and London but the firm is considering expanding to new sites as part of plans that also include headcount growth and increasing take-up across all practice areas.

Speaking to Legal Week, Georgiou said the firm is particularly keen to increase the use of Ashurst Advance within the corporate practice.

He explained: "We want to get all the firm's practice groups maximising use of the efficient delivery model that Ashurst Advance represents. So far it's had a strong uptake in the finance practice because a lot of demand has come from the financial services sector. That has extended into disputes and corporate, and one area of particular focus now is to broaden its use even further into the corporate sector in particular, as more and more large corporates demand the provision of more efficient services, whether that's outsourcing or commercial contract work."

Georgiou, who spent 14 years at Ashurst, added that the existing pipeline of work for Ashurst's Glasgow centre in response to Brexit and other regulatory developments means that "the natural trend will be to increase the number of people across all levels of experience and seniority, as well as [to] look closely at the use of technology".

Last year, Polson said the firm was aiming to grow the Glasgow centre's headcount to about 375 by 2019. The centre's launch was supported by a £2.4m grant from Scots economic development agency Scottish Enterprise, provided it reached a target of employing 300 staff by earlier this year. The firm already houses more than 300 staff in the centre.

Commenting on Georgiou's arrival, Ashurst managing partner Paul Jenkins said: "In recent years we have witnessed fundamental changes in the global legal services market, and Chris's arrival will enable us to further develop our alternative legal services offering. His outstanding expertise and drive will add great depth to the team and real value to our clients."

Fieldfisher has also hired Lesley Munro from Axiom as senior solutions delivery manager for Condor.

Guy Usher, co-founder of Condor and head of derivatives and structured finance at Fieldfisher, said: "Condor has been an incredible success and I would like to acknowledge the huge effort made by Chris Georgiou for helping to make it a reality. We wish him well in his next role.

"Condor has been operating for 18 months and has enjoyed significant success with its initial products and services. It has passed its proof-of-concept phase with flying colours and now we are ready to move to the next level of development.

"Condor provides a flexible, fast and process-efficient way for organisations to supplement their in-house legal function for specific projects such as large-scale remediations, or for business-as-usual managed services such as contract lifecycle management. It has been developing several new solutions, which we are starting to roll out to clients."