London-based international law firm Mishcon de Reya has announced the acquisition of flexible legal resourcing business Flex Legal. This is the firm's first strategic acquisition in the alternative legal services market, building on its prior investments in adjacent businesses over the past 10 years.
Over the past seven years, Flex Legal has grown its business providing a large pool of over 6,000 pre-vetted lawyers, trainees, apprentices and paralegals and connecting relevant candidates for interim roles to customers through an award-winning proprietary online platform. Candidates can be hired short-term to cover urgent tasks or long-term to work on large projects and the firm’s clients include numerous law firms and a wide range of in-house legal teams, from FTSE 100 to early-stage companies.
In 2021 Flex developed Flex Trainee. Rooted in Flex’s commitment to diversity and social mobility in the legal profession, Flex Trainee is designed to help trainee solicitors and apprentices take full advantage of the SQE training scheme and complete their training with in-house legal departments. While part of the Mishcon de Reya Group, Flex Legal will continue to be managed autonomously and separately.
For Mishcon de Reya, this is another major step in executing its ambitious 10-year growth vision and strategy to build a world class consultancy with law at its heart which, over the past year alone, saw the firm complete its merger with Taylor Vinters and open an office in Saudi Arabia. Over the past 10 years, Mishcon has also established a range of innovative consultancy businesses including MDR Mayfair, MDRx, and MDR Discover, as well as the litigation finance venture MDR Solutions I. The firm has also developed a leading team of legal innovators which drives the transformation of service delivery as well as new product development.
Kevin Gold, Executive Chairman of Mishcon de Reya said:
“The alternative legal services market is a high growth part of the legal ecosystem. Investing in it and creating a broader range of legal and business services to clients has been a key part of our 10-year vision. Flex Legal is a young dynamic business with a motivated and inspirational management team. We have been impressed by the quality of the business that Mary and the team have built and I am looking forward to supporting a successful collaboration between the law firm and Flex.”
Mary Bonsor, Co-Founder of Flex said:
“We were struck by how closely aligned Mishcon de Reya’s values, entrepreneurial approach and vision for a broader set of alternative legal services are with our own culture and thinking. We are always focused on how we can expand the range of services we offer our clients and are confident that this deal will open many new opportunities to do so. The opportunity for our Flex legal professionals to benefit from Mishcon’s training programmes, depth of legal expertise and brand will be very valuable as we pursue our ambitious growth plans. I am delighted that the rest of the Flex team will be continuing with me on this next phase of our journey.”
About Flex Legal
Flex Legal is redesigning the way the legal sector works. It connects top interim talent with the UK’s best legal teams, and pairs socially mobile SQE trainees and apprentices with the industry’s most forward-thinking organisations.
Over the last seven years, over 6,000 lawyers and paralegals have joined Flex's award-winning online platform, allowing it to support hundreds of clients to embrace the benefits of flexible on-demand resourcing.
Flex‘s flagship Flex Trainee scheme launched in 2021, to further the company’s aim to make the legal industry more diverse, inclusive, and flexible for all. Flex Trainee is a scheme which has been created to support talented, aspiring lawyers from historically underrepresented backgrounds to qualify in-house through the new SQE route.
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