Elevate has acquired senior flexible resource law firm Halebury, in the process converting to become an alternative business structure (ABS) to facilitate the acquisition of the UK regulated practice.
Halebury will be an Elevate business, retaining its own team and building on its flexible lawyering capability most often utilised by in-house legal teams but seen recently in private practice in a programme led by Stephen Allen at Hogan Lovells. With UK-regulated Halebury on board, Elevate plans to provide both in-house legal teams and law firms with a 360-degree service offering spanning talent, resourcing, consulting, technology and managed services.
Commenting on the acquisition, John Croft, president of Elevate, said: “Halebury’s expert talent gives our customers access to an even deeper pool of senior in-house resources and a combined team that can lead and manage complex legal projects from end to end.”
He told Legal IT Insider: “We now have an ABS license as a law company – we might be the first. The massive benefit to clients of our acquisition of Halebury is that until today they have been able to offer flexible lawyers but they are working with the kind of law departments who are trying to become more efficient and asking for consulting and technology and a more managed or offshore services and until today they have not been able to offer that but now they can.”
Denise Nurse (pictured), co-founder of Halebury (alongside Janvi Patel), said “In addition to what this means for our clients, we are thrilled about what it means for our people. Halebury and Elevate combined provide an ideal home for specialist, creative and innovative talent. Our team can now operate on a global scale, leveraging the best possible training and career development opportunities, and our clients will benefit from our ability to attract and retain the finest legal and business minds.”
The acquisition builds on a period of strong growth for Elevate, further expanding its international footprint and bringing its headcount to about 1,000 globally. In Q4 2018, Elevate acquired legal AI technology and consultancy LexPredict and Sumati Group, a leading provider of contract lifecycle management (CLM), augmenting its technology-enabled legal services to help law departments and law firms solve increasingly complex problems.
We have spoken in some depth to both Croft and Nurse so keep your eyes peeled for further details about the acquisition.
