Law firm Eversheds has signed a £27m outsourcing deal with IT supplier Computacenter.

The contract covers the solicitor's UK service desk, desk-side support and datacentre hosting and management.

The managed services contract will allow the law firm to deliver a technology transformation programme while improving service delivery.

Bryan Hughes, UK managing partner for Eversheds LLP, says IT is not the firm's core business so with finite internal resources the company would never be at the forefront of legal technology.

'Working with an external provider will give us access to far greater resource and cutting-edge technology, which will help transform our service offering and, we believe, give us a real differentiator in the legal marketplace,' said Hughes.

Under the agreement, Computacenter Services will manage and host the firm’s data centre environments and provide 24x7 IT support services to 4,000 users across Europe and Asia.

Eversheds IT director Malcolm Simms says the contract will help to accelerate the transformation and service delivery improvement programme.

'The retained IT team will be free to focus on an extensive programme of innovation across the firm over the next five years that will help us deliver leading-edge business solutions that benefit our people and clients,' said Simms.

As well as providing IT management and support, Computacenter will consolidate the law firm’s existing datacentres to two facilities, deploying a virtualised infrastructure and rolling out new storage and archiving systems.

One of the key objectives for Eversheds, which has 32 offices across Europe, Middle East and Africa, is to provide staff with access to core systems from anywhere in the world and at any time.

Under the contract, 79 staff have transferred from Eversheds to Computacente r Services under TUPE regulations.