Pinsent Masons realigns its professional services offerings with launch of new group

Pinsent Masons Vario, will become a practice group and sit alongside the firm's traditional legal practice service lines, and will combine the firm's flexible resourcing division, diversity and inclusion (D&I) consultancy Brook Graham, technology and consulting group, legal project management and managed legal services capabilities in response to client demand for commercial expertise alongside legal capabilities.

Over the past three financial years, Pinsent Masons Vario has achieved average year-on-year growth in excess of 30% and has opened in four new jurisdictions. In addition to this, it has grown its global client base to 250 clients in the past year.

Managing Director of Pinsent Masons Vario, Matthew Kay, said: “For some time now there has been a move away from the idea that the provision of legal services is mainly about black letter law.  More and more, we and our competitors are called on to play a central role in responding to broader business issues through the provision of technology, or the delivery of managed legal services. While flexible services have been a game changer in recent years - enabling businesses to dial resource up and down in line with day-to-day needs - this offering alone will not be the only solution required by clients as they grapple with increasingly complex business demands.

"By combining the very best of our expertise across legal tech, D&I, project management, resourcing and managed legal services into one function and by establishing it as a practice group we can tailor our response more effectively to the specific needs of each client.

Senior Partner for Pinsent Masons, Richard Foley, commented:  "These disciplines are a core component of our ever widening range of skill sets. Clients may require corporate or planning lawyers as well as forensic accountants, data scientists and D&I consultants. These are all just skill sets and yet historically many have looked and treated the former very differently to the latter. By bringing these professional disciplines into one group and aligning them internally alongside our global practice groups we hope to drive a material change and thus to be able to easily flex and adapt how we provide support on a case-by-case basis.

"Legal services have been transformed in recent years by increasing client demand for a flexible and solutions-based approach to legal and commercial challenges.  Now more than ever, clients are looking for professional services advisers to collaborate with who are able to deploy an array of professionals, including lawyers, who can help them deliver their strategic aims.