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Leverage Consulting and Associates is the Leverage team's cover story, developed by Hardison and used while they were based in Los Angeles.
A portrait of Harlin Leverage III, by Alec Hardison which bears a striking resemblance to Nathan Ford
According to their legend, the company was "founded" in 1913, by the fictional Harlin Leverage III (whose painting stores a large supply of emergency cash), and, according to Hardison, has a "squeaky-clean" financial history designed to not attract unwelcome attention.
To create the illusion that they are a conventional consulting business, Leverage Consulting and Associates operates out of a suite of offices in a red brick building in downtown Los Angeles, sometimes referred to as "Leverage HQ". The office includes a state-of-the art conference room with six-screen video display where the team can confer and review video related to each case. Each member of the team has an alias, with corresponding company, income and tax records.
The team works successfully from the office until Sterling follows them there during the events of "The First David Job". In order to allow Nate, Eliot and Hardison to escape, Hardison is forced to blow up the offices. Then, the team relocates to an unoccupied mansion before splitting up shortly thereafter.
When the team reforms in Boston a few months later, they no longer use the Leverage Consulting and Associates identity. Instead, they set up a more informal headquarters in Nate's apartment, located in a building purchased by Hardison (who again installs state-of-the art technology, over the objections of a reluctant Nate). The team also uses John McRory's Place, the pub downstairs, to meet clients and discuss cases. The Leverage Consulting and Associates cover story is no longer used, although on rare occasions the name still appears on checks the team issues to clients.
At the start of Season 5, the team relocated to Portland, Oregon after their original building became unusable due to the fact that various agencies including the FBI and CIA had begun staking out John McRory's Place. This process also cost the team their original aliases, forcing Hardison to create new identities for them. By the time of the "The Real Fake Car Job", the group is well known and respected in the organized crime underworld.
In the Season 5 series finale, "The Long Goodbye Job", original team leader, Nate Ford and second-in-command, Sophie Devereaux both retire, and the group is left in the hands of Parker, Hardison and Eliot, with Parker becoming the new team leader.
Members[]
- Current
- Parker - A thief and the newest leader of the team.
- Eliot Spencer - The team's hitter.
- Alec Hardison - The team's hacker.
- Former
- Nathan Ford - The original mastermind/brains of the team. Later retired from the team for good, passing leadership of the team over to Parker.
- Sophie Devereaux - The team's grifter who later also retired the team to spend the rest of her days with Nate. She is revealed to return to the team as its leader in the sequel series Leverage: Redemption.
- Tara Cole - Temporary substitute grifter while Sophie was on sabbatical.
Leverage International[]
After Nate's and Sophie's departure, Parker, Eliot and Alec encounter other groups with similar philosophies regarding scammers and criminals. They help organize them into teams operating globally under a new organization, Leverage International.
Notes[]
- Unlike Burn Notice, whose lead character finds his clients via word-of-mouth, producer John Rogers indicates the viewers do not, and may never know how the Leverage team find their clients.
- The building in which the fictional company operates is actually the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. The hotel has a long history of appearances in film (A Star is Born, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Chinatown) and television (Mad Men, Columbo, The West Wing). Elizabeth Short, later to be known as "The Black Dahlia" walked out of the Biltmore Hotel the evening she was murdered in one of Los Angeles's most notorious cases.
Trivia[]
- Regardless of their location, the painting of Harlan Leverage III remains with the team. In "The Bottle Job", we learn it is one of several hiding places for an emergency stash of cash.
- According to the check shown in "The Scheherazade Job", Leverage Consulting and Associates is incorporated in Miami, Florida.
- One company acquired by Leverage Consulting & Associates was Retzing and Sons ("The Snow Job").