James Saxton, left, and Leslie Bell, right.

Lancaster-based Saxton & Stump is adding to its repertoire of nonlegal services, launching a human resources consulting center that will operate as a subsidiary of the law firm.

The new company, Granite HR Consulting, is a full-service human resources business run by Leslie Bell. Bell has run her own HR firm, Elsner Bell & Associates, for 16 years out of central Pennsylvania, while also working in executive HR roles at several companies. Elsner Bell has merged into the new entity as of Monday, Saxton & Stump CEO James Saxton said Wednesday.

Granite will be complementary to Saxton & Stump's existing labor and employment legal practice, Saxton said. That practice made a significant addition just over a year ago, he noted, when it hired Richard Hackman, who now chairs the firm's labor and employment group. The firm learned of Bell through Hackman, Saxton said.

“We're always trying to create things that are good adjuncts to what we're already doing,” he said.

Bell has worked with clients in the high-tech telecom, engineering, manufacturing, publishing and privatized education industries, including several large, national companies. She recently served full-time as vice president of human resources at Miller Chemical & Fertilizer LLC.

Granite's services will include due diligence on mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance, employee record-keeping system set-up, benefits programs analysis, insurance carrier negotiations and performance management system overhaul.

Bell does not currently have any overlapping clients with the law firm, Saxton said, but he hopes both entities can benefit from cross-selling.

Since it was founded in 2015, Saxton & Stump has included nonlawyer consultants in its business model, particularly in the health care space. They include physicians, nurses, psychologists, physician reimbursement specialists, health policy thought leaders, and business consultants. In addition to Granite, the firm also has an insurance brokerage subsidiary.

Asked why Saxton & Stump brought on Bell's consultancy as a wholly owned subsidiary, rather than integrating her into the law firm as a nonlawyer consultant, Saxton noted that she “has quite a following” of her own.

“We like branding things, sometimes separately, and letting them take on an identity of their own,” he said. It's “a marketing best practice.”

Bell will work out of Saxton & Stump office space, and she will share the firm's marketing and development services, which consists of about a dozen professionals, Saxton said. He declined to comment further on the business structure of the subsidiary and law firm.

Hiring nonlawyers and creating subsidiaries is “an investment,” Saxton said, but “this kind of creativity, as long as it's client-focused and solution-focused, I think it's a good investment.”

Still, he said, Saxton & Stump views itself as a law firm at its core. Its focus is mitigation utilizing lawyers and consultants to study clients' problems and create solutions.

Saxton & Stump has steadily grown since it opened, now reaching a head count of more than 80 professionals, Saxton said. The firm is planning to open a new office in Malvern in April, he said, and has continued to grow in Harrisburg and Lancaster.

Recent additions include a trusts and estates practice, which the firm created early this year after hiring partner Scott Alan Mitchell. Also in January, the firm brought on senior medical consultant Dr. Christopher Rumpf. And in September, Saxton & Stump created a construction law practice when partner Ronald Pollock joined the firm.