Lawyers on Demand and AdventBalance merger creates £25m global business

Lawyers on Demand (LOD) and AdventBalance have announced a £25m cross-continent merger to create one of the world’s largest ‘New Law’ businesses.

The deal, which follows six months of negotiations between the UK and Australian firms, will create a new business comprised of 600 lawyers across seven offices in the UK, Asia, and Australia and a client base of over 500 companies.

The merger is set to be completed in March with the new business to carry on under the LOD brand from the second half of 2016.

Commenting on the deal, managing director Simon Harper said: ‘We’ve known and admired AdventBalance for many years, having “grown-up” together in the New Law environment we helped to create. Both businesses are very successful in their own right.’

The LOD co-founder Berwin Leighton Paisner consultant continued: ‘What we also share is an unwavering commitment to our people and time has shown us that happy lawyers mean happy clients. AdventBalance has exactly the same approach.’

Chief operating officer and former CEO of AdventBalance, Ken Jagger, added: ‘For our lawyers we have provided access to top tier work while allowing them to balance their other interests. For our clients we have provided high quality lawyers on a flexible basis.’

‘The merger will enhance our ability to do both by providing lawyers with more opportunities and clients with global coverage,’ said the former Freehills partner.

John Knox, the company’s new managing director and ex-head of business development at Allen & Overy, explained the merger would create a unique opportunity for its lawyers and clients and ‘delivers a New Law venture with the scale and momentum to compete for work in an unprecedented way’.

LOD saw a 40 per cent increase in its turnover in 2015. Since launching in 2007 with the aim of helping teams manage changing workloads more efficiently, some of the UK’s largest law firms have followed LOD’s example and established their own freelance legal businesses.

Last year, Addleshaw Goddard and DLA Piper became the latest firms to announce a foray into flexible resourcing business as more and more lawyers look for alternatives to the atypical 80 hour working week. 

They followed the formation of A&O's flexible resourcing business Peerpoint and Pinsent Masons' Vario in 2013. While in May 2012, Freshfields launched its 'Continuum' service, staffed by firm alumni on a contract basis.

Other casual legal service businesses include DAC Beachcroft’s ‘The People Pool’ and Transatlantic Law International’s 'Labor Law Plus'.