In-House Counsel

Got Overflow Legal Work? Think Outside The Box

3 tips for dealing with midlevel work overflow.

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It is well-known fact that hiring a midlevel candidate — one who is experienced, cost-effective, and preferably has in-house experience — is one of the most challenging in-house hiring feats. As a result, many companies end up with midlevel overflow work they, most often, have to solve by outsourcing. How can companies do this successfully while controlling quality, efficiency, and cost? Our take on this issue reveal that, in addition to some of the more traditional routes we outline below, thinking creatively and taking an “off the beaten path” approach to managing overflow work doesn’t have to be a mind-bending feat.

Olga’s take:

We should see overflow work as an opportunity for legal departments to think outside the box by hiring law students, recent law graduates, lawyers pivoting from one law practice to another, and alternative legal service providers. It is also an opportunity to look beyond law school rankings, top law firm affiliations, or prerequisite in-house experience. Especially since these metrics fail us consistently, and are an outdated practice that no other discipline in corporate America worships quite as much as law does.

Even though we all realize that law practice has been an inherently apprentice-based system for centuries, we all chase the same few mid-level candidates with the “right” in-house experience. Many of us perceive a mythical shortage of the “right” midlevel legal talent and find ourselves fighting (and often overpaying) for the same few “qualified candidates.” As a result of this collective delusion, many law students, recent law graduates, and transitioning lawyers find themselves in an impossible chicken-and-egg dilemma. They’re seen as having “no skills,” so they get no jobs – then, because they can’t get jobs, they develop no skills!

The following realizations make a compelling case for an investment – through internship/externship programs, employment, or contract arrangements – in law students, recent graduates, and transitioning lawyers. One: most overflow legal work is not rocket science. Two: most law students and lawyers are hard-working, bright, and dedicated enough to be sufficiently trained in a relatively short period of time. Three: training these underutilized pools of candidates creates valuable management opportunities for your existing midlevel attorneys, improves stale corporate culture, boosts department and company morale, and consequently helps retain existing legal talent. Four: by accepting these unconventional candidates, your legal department will be populated with lawyers who appreciate the opportunity to serve and eagerly evangelize about the company and department. And finally (and perhaps most obviously): hiring these folks leads to incredible cost savings!

As legal leaders, we need to sober up about the following fact: GCs, legal leaders, VPs, specialists, lawyers (of all ranks) and all other brilliant legal minds are not born. They are made through the experiences and guidance of more experienced mentors. By helping these underutilized candidates solve their chicken-and-egg dilemma, we will also address numerous other challenges that corporate legal departments face.

Katia’s take:

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I fully support and encourage more lawyers to look for gems to bring on to their teams in non-traditional places. This pool, often-times, have the practical skills, resilience and dedication to thrive in fast-paced (at times, non-traditional) corporate environments (e.g. startups). Additionally, this is another opportunity for employers to feed the diversity funnel. In this day and age, we can all agree that a lack of diversity is not due to a lack of quality candidates. However, we cannot expect to truly diversify the legal practice by doing the “same old thing” over and over again. As an added bonus, many of the individuals we would both encourage hiring may lack the “perfect” experience, but have plenty of enthusiasm and drive to grow into your perfect employee. So, in truth, it’s just about overcoming our own biases and taking a chance – and that’s something I always support.

Not ready to fully take the plunge?

If you are still not compelled to reframe and invest in law students, recent graduates, and transitioning lawyers, we have identified three outsourcing options we’ve seen utilized with mixed results.

1. Traditional large law firm secondments

Using traditional secondments from large law firms is a traditional default option. For many in-house departments, secondments tend to be unsatisfying for at least two reasons. One: large law firm prices tend to be high. And two: at least anecdotally, a number of in-house departments find that they don’t always get the most dedicated or driven individuals with secondments because, as expected, large law firms put their best resources on their most important, strategic, and profitable cases and projects (in other words, not overflow work). This isn’t to say there aren’t some wonderful law firm associates who take on secondments, but it isn’t a guarantee of satisfaction even if a large law firm name is behind it.

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2. Legal service providers for specific types of work or projects

Some in-house departments have implemented various service providers or legal staffing companies – such as Special Counsel, Counsel on Call, and Morae Legal – for specific types of work or for special projects. According to a number of general counsel and legal operations professionals, these service providers may provide quality lawyers at more reasonable costs than large law firms. Many general counsel and legal operations professionals also enjoy how these service providers can expand and contract with their workload demands, business cycles, economic changes, various transitions, and unforeseen internal or external shocks.

These legal staffing companies normally have a bank of experienced attorneys with specific subject matter expertise that are available for short-term periods to assist with projects. These are typically seasoned attorneys who simply don’t want the law firm life anymore, but are still committed to the practice of law. Many of our colleagues have expressed that these attorneys are far better quality than junior associates from big law firms. When interviewing these candidates, make sure you ask enough questions focusing on the attorney’s ability to quickly and efficiently pick up your company’s way of working as we’ve seen that be the key between failure and success.

3. Managed services arrangements

Some in-house legal departments create a “managed services arrangement” that consists of freelance consultants and smaller law firms. These managed services arrangements are employed for a variety of legal work ranging from M&A and litigation support to commercial contracts, IP, and regulatory work. The benefit of this arrangement is that it operates just like a legal service provider, with all of the top quality legal talent.

Many of our colleagues have shared with us that this method allows them to consistently hire top quality, hard-working legal talent. These talented lawyers often work remotely and appreciate flexibility. The added bonus is that these remote arrangements may be located in different time zones, which means that overflow work is done during off business hours. This can improve the responsiveness and efficiency of your legal department. Although this option may require lots of hands-on work to design the managed services arrangement, it ultimately creates a high quality, reasonably-priced legal alternative for legal departments.

How you manage your overflow of midlevel work is up to you, and the solutions range from revolutionary and disruptive, to fairly run of the mill. Although we certainly encourage legal departments to truly look outside the box and consider hiring from underutilized candidate pools, secondments, legal service providers, and managed services arrangements are all decent, useful options as well. Choosing the right solution for your overflow of midlevel work will depend on your budget, workload, time period and expertise needs. One thing is for certain: until we find more of the coveted “midlevel unicorns,” every in-house department will face this challenge sooner or later.

Olga V. Mack and Katia Bloom are startup enthusiasts who embrace the current disruption to the legal profession. Long gone are the days when in-house legal departments simply manage outside counsel or provide services. Today’s legal department is a sophisticated business unit that co-manages the company’s bottom line, embraces technology, and analyzes risks constructively. Mack and Bloom love this change and are dedicated to improving and shaping the future of the legal profession. Together they passionately collect and share inspiring stories of legal leaders who are thriving through the ongoing tectonic shift. Mack and Bloom are convinced that the legal profession will emerge from this revolution even stronger, more resilient, and inclusive than before. They are currently co-authoring a manual of the skills and traits lawyers need to succeed in — and even enjoy — today’s rapidly evolving in-house legal departments. You can reach them at olga@olgamack.com and katia@katiabloom.com or @olgavmack and @bloomkatia on Twitter.

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