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The deployment of flexible lawyers has considerably increased in the past two years, driven not just by the changes to the labour market wrought by the pandemic, but by the availability of supporting technology including remote working tools. As in other sectors, the role of the flexible lawyer now firmly exists in the middle of the employment spectrum, neither fully employed nor fully contracted, but working on a project-by-project as and when (scalable) basis. In a conversation with David Halliwell, one of the Partners in the Vario Group at Pinsent Masons, he shares how the usage of flexible lawyers, supported by agile digital tech and ������Ƶ solutions, has enabled the firm to better support their clients throughout the pandemic: it is an effective way of working that he believes will to continue.

“The growth of our flexible lawyer business … has gone from strength to strength through the pandemic as our legal teams have got used to the idea of working with remote teams and then it doesn't need to be somebody who's employed, and it doesn't need to be a fully third-party law firm, you could have somebody who's in in between. That approach has really been enabled by remote working technology”

Benefits to law firms

Leveraging technology is enabling firms to use labour as a flexible resource to better align with the peaks and troughs of the workload, scaling up and down when required. Law firms today can achieve scale and competitiveness by offering clients a blended solution. Supported by in-house staff, clients are now looking for a blended solution (self-service element + expert legal advisory), with contract management tools being delivered through document automation and managed services of basic contract review. Using lawyers flexibly helps firms focus on delivering a cost-effective solution to clients. Tools such as LexisPSL helps lawyers with all the practical guidance required to make an informed and timely decision.

In addition, flexible lawyering allows firms to tap into new markets and deliver bespoke services by matching required specialist expertise with lawyers typically outside the firm. Previously, when law firms were considering expansion into these avenues, the fixed costs associated with retained labour were a handbrake on growth. Moreover, flexible lawyering assists both law firms and their clients alike in capitalizing on the strengths and specialisms of individual lawyers and matching them with client requirements.

Benefit to clients

With law firms deploying an extensive talent pool of flexible lawyers for varied assignments (an interim role, family leave, a specialist matter or a long-term assignment), clients can receive an authentic hybrid solution.  And when outsourcing work to Pinsent Masons in a managed service, clients get those benefits at scale:

“Rather than using Pinsent Masons employed lawyers, we're using our flexible lawyers in order to do that work, so that we, rather than the client are engaging the flexible lawyers… That has allowed us to get our employed Pinsent Masons teams focusing on high value projects and the high value work. But also to give our clients a really flexible and cost effective way of doing some of the more day-to-day work which we wouldn't necessarily be able to do”

Rather than the clients directly engaging flexible lawyers, Pinsent Masons directly provides the pool of flexible lawyers who in-turn utilise ������Ƶ solutions to deliver insight to clients: “The Lexis tools have been able to help. One of the things which is important for us is that all of our flexible lawyers have access to the full suite of Pinsent Masons knowledge tools, and Lexis PSL know how which goes with that, which is a bit different from some of the other flexible resourcing and services out there”.

This coupled with remote working saves the senior leadership in the client’s in-house legal team valuable time and enables them to focus on higher-value work, as well as delivering a wider service to the business, covering more areas and at a more flexible price.

Within our overall Pinsent Masons model, the cost advantages you get deploying flexible resource and the utility that gives you, means that we're able to give clients that real hybrid solution. And I don't think we would have developed that model as quickly and as effectively if it hadn't been for this [pandemic]. It's changed the expectations [for all of us].