The new facility will be Herbert Smith Freehills third major alternative services hub, following its flagship centre in Belfast and a new centre opened in Shanghai earlier this month. The Melbourne hub will be staffed with around 65 employees including at least 50 fee earners, but aims to grow its headcount to at least 100 over the next three years. The firm’s pop-up legal services hub in Perth, opened last year, has also been confirmed as a new permanent fixture of the firm’s Australian operations.

Doing more for less

The dedicated alternative legal service centre in Melbourne will be geared towards handling volume, offering an array of services including 24-hour document review, claims assessment, due diligence, commercial contracts and legal analysis to HSF clients at a lower cost. A similar 13-lawyer centre launched by HSF in Shanghai last month was the first of its kind ever opened by an international law firm in China. ‘We just looked around all the different cities and Melbourne landed best in terms of the pool of talent and the cost and the premises were nice and close to the city – it ticked all the boxes for us,’ commented HSF managing partner of strategic implementation Patrick St John of the firm’s latest offering.

Sources: The Lawyer; Legal Business; Legal Week