Mark Wasserman of Eversheds Sutherland. Photo: John Disney/ALM Mark Wasserman of Eversheds Sutherland. Photo: John Disney/ALM

Eversheds Sutherland is formally rolling out subsidiary Konexo, its alternative legal services provider, in the U.S., almost a year after unveiling the service in the U.K. and Asia.

Carmen Brun, who previously served as counsel in the firm's securities enforcement and litigation practice, will lead Konexo's U.S. operations. Stateside offerings will include litigation services, investigations and due diligence work, and contract analysis.

"The global pandemic has only accelerated the need for in-house legal departments to do more with less," Brun said. "Because of COVID-19, there's more demand for a business like Konexo, especially a business that's powered by a sophisticated global law practice like Eversheds."

Brun gave the example of contract analysis, where businesses see the value of using technology to assess wide portfolios of contracts and identify such provisions as force majeure and term clauses.

Brun, who is based in Washington, D.C., has spent 16 years at Eversheds. Before her legal career, she spent a dozen years in the hotel industry, including 11 as the general manager at the former Crowne Plaza at the United Nations in New York City.

"I'll be using my business background and my legal skills," she said of her new role.

When Eversheds unveiled Konexo in the U.K. and Asia in 2019, the firm said it was aiming for long-term revenues of at least £100 million, or nearly $127 million. That impressive target is aided by the fact that the international product is the result of the combination of several existing businesses—advisory, interim resourcing and managed service offerings, as well as flexible lawyering—that have been bringing in significant revenue since being created roughly a decade ago.

"We're not setting any revenue goals. If it's in the millions, that's great. If not, that's fine too," said Eversheds co-CEO Mark Wasserman, who's based in Atlanta. "At the end of this year we'll have some experience, and we'll think about how to do that for 2021."

But Wasserman said that the service has already seen a soft launch in the U.S. One example is a significant internal investigation. Without Konexo, the firm's white-collar lawyers would be handling the work. But the firm would be turning to an outside provider for document review and other ancillary activities.

"Now we can keep it under control for the client," he said. "On a communications basis, there's one tech platform. That's much more efficient. On the price point, it's better too."

Wasserman said last week that the firm was currently working on a soft, nonphased return to the office for some people, but he expected many clients to be working remotely through Labor Day, or the foreseeable future.

"The fact that everyone is going to be working in more of a decentralized fashion going forward is going to make this more impactful for certain clients and more impactful for us than it would have been before the pandemic," he said. "I think the openness many lawyers everywhere have to getting work done with people who might be sitting in different states or countries is greater than ever."

The firm announced in early May that it would be reducing compensation for U.S. lawyers and staff by 10% on average and furloughing about 40 staff members. It also delayed the start date for its first-year associate class from the fall to January 2021, and said it would hold a truncated remote summer program for its roughly 20 U.S. law students.

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