How FLEX Attorneys Can Help In-House Teams Maximize Their Legal Resources
The general attitude of in-house legal decision-makers toward bringing on interim attorneys, especially concerns over data security and work product, has changed considerably over the last several years. In-house leaders have become more receptive to the advantages interim support can bring, in terms of cost, substantive work, and flexibility. In this article, we will discuss how flexible attorneys can help your legal team maximize its resources and address the challenges in-house leaders often face.
Optimize Your Legal Budget
Layoffs and budget cuts have hit the tech industry hard. As companies focus on efficiency and cost reduction, they are carefully analyzing which legal needs require the level of attention and merit the fees of outside counsel, and which legal work is most efficiently performed by lawyers working within the company. Interim in-house counsel can provide you with responsive and predictable legal services without the effort and expense of hiring a permanent employee, particularly for needs that may be temporary or require part-time hours.
Generally speaking, organizations can bring on interim attorneys for much less than using outside counsel, which is particularly fitting for commercial, product, and corporate overflow work more appropriately handled in-house. Following a layoff or without budget to make a permanent hire, interim attorneys can also ease the load on your remaining in-house team. This could mean allowing your permanent attorneys to focus on more complex work, while maintaining high quality on more routine deals. It could also mean utilizing more senior-level interim attorneys to help with training, creating playbooks, or any other need requiring specialization. In either scenario, integrating interim in-house counsel onto your team maximizes the use of your legal budget.
Access Top-Quality Talent
The COVID-19 pandemic caused many high-quality attorneys to rethink the need for flexibility and predictability in their legal careers. On the flip side, the layoffs abundant in the tech industry have led some exceptional attorneys who had not previously considered flexible work to now actively seek interim engagements. Furthermore, as many companies moved to a remote work model, they are now able to tap into talent nationwide. These new talent streams are in addition to our historical talent sources - attorneys seeking flexibility due to family responsibilities or non-legal pursuits, attorneys seeking to augment a solo practice, or semi-retired attorneys who still want to work. The result is that the quality of the current pool of attorneys seeking alternative work arrangements has never been higher.
FLEX attorneys are experienced practitioners with both large law firm training and significant in-house experience. We recruit attorneys with expertise in technology transactions, corporate governance, product counseling, intellectual property, data privacy, and many other areas. We also work with GC-level attorneys capable of handling a full suite of legal needs for an emerging company with limited (or no) in-house legal resources. We can help you find the attorney who will fit your needs precisely.
Prepare for Uncertainty
The difficulty in forecasting legal workflow is perhaps the top concern we hear about from FLEX clients. This can be due to the unexpected timing of deals, the unexpected departure (voluntary or not) of legal staff, or unexpected regulatory or economic shifts. Maybe a project requires specific subject matter expertise that your current legal team is lacking. You may not know the length of the need or what the week-to-week schedule will look like.
Bringing on an interim attorney gives you the agility to meet these issues head-on. FLEX attorneys can fit seamlessly into your existing legal team and quickly take on substantive work with minimal oversight. Because all the attorneys on the FLEX roster have already been extensively vetted, the FLEX management team can move fast in finding you the right attorney within days of learning about your need. We can quickly scale resources up or down as your needs fluctuate.
Working with interim counsel also gives you the opportunity to evaluate their fit for a potential permanent position. You learn how well the attorney fits your team’s culture and work product standards without having to make an upfront commitment. If circumstances change on your team, you can extend a permanent offer and FLEX will assist with the transition.
Selecting Your Provider: The FLEX Difference
Once you’ve made the decision to bring on interim legal counsel, you’ll find that you have a plethora of providers to choose from. Selecting the provider best suited to meet your company’s immediate and future needs can be a daunting task. Here are some factors to consider in making that selection, along with how FLEX addresses those factors.
Assess your specific needs
FLEX has a specific focus on attorneys for technology and life sciences transactional needs. We do not recruit paralegals, legal assistants, or other legal professionals, and we do not recruit attorneys from other industries. FLEX also exclusively recruits attorneys with significant in-house experience, as we know the ability to provide practical, business-minded advice is key for our clients.
We believe in quality over quantity, and less than 3% of attorneys who apply to be part of the FLEX roster are accepted.
Assess the recruiting team and vetting process
The recruiters you work with should always be able to fully understand the substantive needs you have and your organization’s culture, so that they can send you only the most qualified candidates. The FLEX management team is made up solely of former practicing attorneys. We know the right questions to ask when speaking with you about your needs and when speaking with our attorneys to assess their fit for those needs. We are a small team of four, and we meet to brainstorm potential attorney possibilities for each client need we receive.
FLEX has a rigorous attorney vetting process, which includes written and verbal skills assessments where we evaluate the candidate’s negotiation style, risk balance, and substantive legal knowledge. We also conduct a panel interview where we take a deep dive into the attorney’s prior practice experience.
Assess potential efficiencies
FLEX attorneys can access Fenwick-created templates, playbooks, and knowledge management materials on your behalf at no additional cost. While you do not have to be a Fenwick client to use FLEX for interim support, FLEX attorneys can work seamlessly with your Fenwick team as needed if you are also a Fenwick client.
Offering contract management software or AI-based contract review tools can be appropriate for a provider in some instances, but it is important not to overvalue these services. The deciding factor should always be the ability of your provider to assess your needs and the quality of the attorneys that they can provide.
Conclusion
By incorporating interim attorney support into their workflow, in-house legal leaders can ensure their departments remain appropriately staffed and equipped to handle the unexpected. When considered in tandem with the significant cost savings that utilizing interim counsel can bring, and the wealth of top-tier attorney talent available, the value of bringing on interim attorneys is clear. However, leaders should also understand the various options they have on the market for interim attorneys and choose their provider wisely. When the dots connect on all the above is when an in-house legal department has truly maximized its legal resources.