Secondees Trends - Part 2

Last month, we began taking a look at two of the trends driving increased utilization of secondees by corporate law departments. Indeed, the use of secondees—which are highly-skilled contract attorneys—has increased dramatically in recent years for a number of reasons. Some of the reasons are economic. For example, engaging a secondee rather than adding a full-time lawyer is an effective way for corporate law departments to convert fixed costs to variable ones. Other, and perhaps more important, driving forces are strategic.

As discussed in last month’s post, corporate law departments are strategically integrating secondees as critical parts of their teams. In the past, many secondees and contract lawyers were perceived as “gap-fillers” who could be plugged in to a corporate law department when, for example, an in-house attorney went on leave or existing capacity was stretched.

Today, regardless of the size of the legal department, supplementing permanent staff with secondee attorneys makes business sense for those seeking quality and cost-efficiency. Those who are using more outside resources are realizing results. The 2018 Altman Weil Chief Legal Officer Survey found that over 70 percent of corporate law departments report “significant improvement” in efficiency from their use of secondees/contract attorneys.

As a company that’s in the middle of the secondee supply chain, tasked with finding qualified candidates for corporate law departments, we expect secondee utilization to increase in 2020. In this Part 2 of our series on the trends affecting the growing use of secondees, we’ll address how a better, larger supply of secondees is driving demand, and how technology is facilitating engagements with geographically-dispersed candidates.

Trend 3: Single Source to Small Panel of Providers

We are in the middle of what’s being called the “Golden Age” of television. With Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Hulu, and Disney—not to mention the broadcast and cable networks—throwing billions of dollars into content creation, there is more and better programming selection than ever.

Corporate law departments are reaping similar benefits in the market for secondee talent. In the past, when corporations adopted more of an ad hoc approach to their use of secondees, most would rely upon a single source of secondee supply. They would take what they could get, which led them to limit the ways they would use secondees. Lack of talent options led them to have low expectations about ways in which secondees could help.

Today, as chief legal officers recognize the impact the strategic utilization of secondees on their department, they are building out “panels” of alternative legal service providers (“ALSPs”), such as Lumen Legal, to increase access to innovative solutions and a larger pool of talented attorneys.

By drawing upon a wider range of ALSPs, corporate law departments can more effectively and efficiently find specialized expertise to address the specialized challenges they face.

Trend 4: On-Site to Virtual

In the past, in-house counsel expressed a strong preference for only utilizing on-site secondees, thereby restricting the available pool of secondees to those located within a certain geography. In 2019, chief legal officers have come to realize the benefits of expanding the available pool of secondees by engaging them on a virtual basis. In particular, there has been a realization that remote work doesn’t mean less productivity—just the opposite, in fact. A recent two-year study by Stanford University found that there was a meaningful increase in productivity among people who worked remotely, finding that the productivity among remote workers was equal to an extra full day’s worth of work each week.

This shift has allowed law departments to increase the amount and complexity of work handled by secondees because the pool of potential candidates being curated by ALSPs for their benefit is location independent.

Technology has enabled this transformation. Cloud-based software, videoconferencing, enhanced security, and other technologies allow remotely working lawyers to plug in to a corporate legal department as if they were working down the hall despite being across the country. As technology gets even better and faster, the geographic limitations that historically served as barriers between legal talent and legal demand will continue to be knocked down.

This technological shift has also led more talented candidates to seek out secondment opportunities. Because corporate law departments are more interested in who is doing the work than where the work is being done, attorneys looking for interesting and sophisticated work have more options than ever.

Conclusion

As the market for legal services continues to shift, and the assumptions about how corporate law departments can procure the legal talent they need evolve, secondees are going to become increasingly important components of the legal services delivery model. Businesses will become more focused in their search for talent, and ALSPs will become more effective in delivering the right resources to address their needs. From cost-efficiency to subject matter expertise, there are many reasons why more businesses are seeking out the services of talented secondees. The trends are clear: the traditional legal services delivery model is being disrupted, and secondees are stepping in to provide the solutions that businesses need.