Corporate legal departments are keeping more work in-house these days to reduce costs. For many, this means more work and fewer people to do it. To that end, many companies are taking advantage of the high quality of talent on the market now by increasing the use of contract attorneys.
While using outside counsel is still a necessity for certain highly specialized work, many corporate law departments are re-evaluating and increasing the work can be done internally. Often, that work consists of routine matters, such as patent applications, document reviews, low-level litigation and contract administration. However, as law departments lean more heavily on temporary legal professionals, the project work is not always routine. With increased federal regulation, more companies are turning to contract attorneys to handle large projects, such as corporate investigations and transactional due diligence. When the project is completed, the contract lawyers are released.
“Our company has seen a dramatic increase in the use of temporary attorneys and paralegals by corporate clients,” says Joe Freedman, Chairman of AMERICAN Legal Search, LLC, a national legal search firm and recruiting industry leader. “The talent pool is better than it’s ever been, and our clients are taking advantage of it.” Freedman added.
As the work product quality generated by contract lawyers increases, temporary legal teams may play a bigger role in corporate law departments. With a continued emphasis on cost-minimization, this may be a catalyst that changes the legal industry.
