Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has made a raft of star legal project manager hires from Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), including taking head of process improvement Cathy Mattis.

Mattis will lead HSF’s legal project management team in the UK, US and EMEA from London. She launched BLP’s Streamline “process improvement” service last October to integrate project managers into its legal process on high-volume litigation and construction disputes.

The firm has also hired Lynn Mackay, Sarah Nathan and Priye Lele from Mattis’s team at BLP. Lele joins as project management lead for HSF’s corporate department in the UK, US and EMEA.

HSF embarked on plans to roll out legal project managers (LPMs) across its practice areas and jurisdictions earlier this year, having previously trialled the role in its global disputes department with the hire of one LPM in London in May.

The project managers will work with project teams on pricing negotiations with clients through to completion of the work. They will also provide coaching to partners on how to deliver efficiency and best practice when managing complex cases or transactions.

The team move follows a rush for top name business development hires at London firms. Earlier this month Eversheds hired DWF client development head Clifton Harrison as head of its marketing and business development. He was replaced by Dentons head of client development David Irvine.

HSF disputes head Justin D’Agostino said LPMs allowed the firm “to provide clients with a more systematic and disciplined approach to legal work. Ultimately a better product is delivered and legal spend is optimised”.

The hires mean HSF’s global LPM team has doubled to 10 members of staff this year, with five working in the US, UK and EMEA and five others working across Asia and Australia.

A spokesperson said further expansion of the team was planned for the coming months.

HSF corporate services director Richard King said: “This strengthening of the firm’s global LPM offering demonstrates the firm’s long-term investment and commitment to providing clients with a leading-edge service, delivered seamlessly in all practice areas across the globe.”

The news comes a year after Hogan Lovells created two global project management roles after taking senior managers from BLP last September.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer revealed it would create six project management roles in its litigation practice in the same month, and Clifford Chance, Linklaters and Pinsent Masons are also understood to have introduced legal project managers in London this year.

HSF launched a 240-lawyer alternative legal services centre from its Belfast legal and back-office support hub this summer, and plans to launch another centre outside the UK this year to complement its service offices in Australia, London and Northern Ireland.

With the global legal services centre and legal project managers expected to increase efficiency in complex client work by freeing up its lawyers to focus on practising law, HSF is on a mission to show its clients that it can deliver more for less.