Reflecting on 2023: A Message From Our CEO
February 22, 2024
It’s February – a perfect time to remind ourselves of our New Year’s resolutions that were once so present in our minds but in many cases by now have been forgotten. I love New Year’s resolutions. Not because I am someone who likes to set a discrete goal that I can measure in 365 days, but because I am someone who loves the opportunity to be intentional, to decide who I want to be and how I want to show up, and then make a plan for how to do it differently and better.
John Dewey astutely said: “We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.” New Year’s resolutions are really about who you want to be in the coming year. The most powerful part of reflection is the action we resolve to take based on what we’ve learned.
The truth is that 2023 was a difficult year. It was a year fraught with geopolitical strife, constant uncertainty, mass layoffs, looming recession fears, and RTO turmoil.
As I’ve shared before, when times get tough, we turn to our values to remind us who we are and to our management philosophy to shine light on where we want to go.
Here’s what we learned this year that forms the foundation of our New Year’s resolution (aka our management philosophy) for 2024.
Our clients are in the same business we are in: That business is client service. That means our job goes beyond the service we provide and extends to how flexible legal talent can enable your legal team to serve your internal clients even better. Spoiler alert: That’s EXACTLY why we’re here. Let us show you how our job is to make your job easier.
Our client and attorney experience matters: Your experience matters to you, and we take that seriously. In a challenging year all around, Paragon steadfastly maintained industry-leading client and attorney satisfaction ratings. Our client Net Promoter Score (NPS, on a scale of -100 to 100) was consistently above 70, an industry high water mark. Our attorney NPS has not dropped below 80. Our commitment to your success is unmatched in this industry, it has been since our founding, and it shows.
“Paragon is the Gold Standard”: Our market survey of current clients, former clients, and prospective clients revealed overwhelmingly positive feedback on the quality of Paragon’s talent and our high level of client service. One client shared: “Paragon is the ‘Gold Standard’ in what they do.” Our deep expertise in this space, our focus on exercising care and judgment in the match, and our bespoke approach to each engagement allows us to make sure you get the help you need when you need it.
Culture, collaboration, and continuous learning lead to growth: Something we’ve always focused on and never compromised is our culture. In a challenging year, I’m most proud of our team’s resilience, drive, dedication to our clients, support of our attorneys, and encouragement of one another. Even as we have added new team members, the engagement, collaboration, continuous improvement from the Paragon corporate team is unmatched. I am so excited to be adding more people to our corporate team in 2024.
The legal industry is in a unique moment of change: With ever-increasing regulation, the emergence of accessible AI, and the renewed focus on cost-control and efficiency, the legal industry is changing faster than ever. Paragon is committed to helping you navigate those changes – we were the first in the industry to equip our attorney team with cutting edge AI contract technology, we have gathered and shared expert views on keeping up with data privacy and cybersecurity regulations, and we have maintained our commitment to advancing equality in the legal profession. We will continue to help our clients and attorneys be prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Our management philosophy for 2024 is to harness and leverage that which makes us unique – our nimbleness, our drive to win, and the quality talent and client service that make us the best in the biz. We are one of the largest in our field with a boutique feel and a focus on the human touch. We operate with integrity, we value relationships over transactions, and we live by our values.
We begin 2024 with great excitement and optimism for the year ahead. Flexible legal talent has never been more relevant to address the challenges faced by in-house legal departments today, as they grapple with limited resources, growing workloads, stretched team members, budget pressures, and the need to show their value.
We’re passionate about making in-house legal practice a better experience for clients and attorneys alike: more flexible, more efficient, and more rewarding.
We look forward to being a part of your success in 2024 and to an exceptional experience every time.
Cheers!
Trista Engel
CEO, Paragon Legal