Eversheds Sutherland has launched crowdsourcing platform Idea Drop at the firm’s New York partner conference ahead of a wider global rollout in September as management sets out its innovation agenda for the firm.

The announcement was revealed at Eversheds’ recent conference, just its second as a merged firm, with co-CEOs Lee Ranson and Mark Wasserman looking to build ahead of steam before the end of the firm’s current strategy in 2020.

Idea Drop will allow the firm’s lawyers to work on a global, real-time basis where projects and ideas can be worked on by any lawyer in the network. Challenges can also be posted and viewed by anyone, resulting in tangible rewards for its staff and partners.

Speaking to The Lawyer, Ranson said: “We wanted to try and look at what other industries and companies had done to promote a culture of innovation across the business. Part of that was that we wanted something that can be used by everybody.

“We started speaking with Idea Drop around six months ago. The initial launch is to the partner group in New York with a view to roll it out firm wide in September.”

As part of the push to further mirror some elements of the firm’s key corporate clients, Eversheds will also launch an updated ‘purpose and value statement’ in September.

Wasserman said: “We spent a lot of time talking about our purpose and values statement for the business. We’re trying to give people across the business the idea of having a purpose that isn’t just related to financials or strategic growth. Every one of our key clients has that.”

The firm has worked to put a number of initiatives in place in an attempt to place a greater emphasis on traits such as collaboration. The most notable was an overhaul of its remuneration system – across the Eversheds Sutherland International network – which placed more emphasis on discretionary bonuses.