In the largest New Law merger to date, the UK’s biggest freelance lawyer service Lawyers On Demand (LOD) has sealed a deal with Australia’s AdventBalance to create a £25m business.
Revenue at LOD rose by 42% in the 2014/15 financial year to hit £12.3m and, with the merger doubling turnover, the deal is set to catapult LOD into the UK’s 100 largest legal services businesses, pulling in more than established law firms such as Harbottle & Lewis and Boodle Hatfield, less than a decade since its launch.
The deal, signed after six months of negotiations, establishes LOD’s first overseas presence through AdventBalance’s network of offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Hong Kong and Singapore.
AdventBalance will rebrand as LOD later this year and the combined company will house over 600 lawyers and consultants carrying out short-term secondments and legal projects.
The tie-up comes as LOD prepares to roll out a landmark deal to service the world’s second-largest international law firm, DLA Piper.
‘New Law is growing up, but we’ve got to keep innovating.’
Simon Harper,
Lawyers On Demand
AdventBalance is run by former Freehills partner Ken Jagger and the ex-head of business development at Allen & Overy (A&O) John Knox, who became part of the combined firm’s six-person board.
Knox said the merger ‘makes perfect sense’ as ‘it will create a New Law venture with the scale and momentum to compete for work in an unprecedented way’.
City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), which owns 80% of LOD, has been handed two places on the new board.
LOD’s model has been replicated by several of the UK’s largest law firms. Over 30% of the UK’s 20 largest law firms, including A&O and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, have established their own freelance contracting businesses since LOD launched in 2007, while the DLA Piper deal marked a change in market perception towards a company part-owned by BLP.
LOD co-founder Simon Harper told Legal Business that AdventBalance’s Asian operations ‘prove the New Law model can work in the region’ and that it ‘can grow anywhere there are multinationals’.
He added: ‘We are in the midst of market disruption so we don’t really know where we will end up, but what we do know is that we want LOD to be a leader in New Law. As part of that we’re becoming global. New Law is growing up, but we’ve got to keep innovating.’
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk