The Top 5 Objections We Hear to Hiring Interim Counsel

When you imagine interim counsel, do you picture a lone attorney in a windowless room doing document review? That was certainly the case 20 years ago.

Thankfully, flexible legal services have come a long way. Attorneys with niche skills take on interim roles today to get more control over their work and their schedules. They can use their expertise to help in-house teams without sacrificing their work-life balance.

And yet, some GCs still see flexible legal talent as a one-off solution for admin work. In-house teams are burnt out and over budget, even though talented interim attorneys could ease their workloads.

If that sounds dubious, you probably have one of these objections to hiring flexible legal talent. Read on for our responses to the most common questions about hiring interim counsel.

1. I don’t need interim legal services.

Traditionally, in-house teams used staffing services to backfill temporarily vacant roles, such as covering a maternity leave. But today, there are many more use cases for flexible legal talent.

• Access to specialized skills. Interim counsel can provide expertise in a variety of practice areas, such as data privacy, intellectual property, employment law, and more. 
• Test new team structures. Use a flexible attorney to test a new role before committing to a full-time hire (or when you don’t have budget for one).
• Add internal capacity. Interim counsel can support your team through temporary surges in workload, like quarter-end pushes or major transactions. 

This last point is critical considering the in-house legal teams’ current workloads. In a 2023 Bloomberg survey, 70% of in-house counsel reported heavy workloads as a major challenge compared to just half of law firm attorneys. Flexible talent provides much-needed relief to your overworked in-house attorneys without the time and cost of full-time hiring.

2. Interim legal services isn’t the best use of my budget.

Some GCs assume flexible counsel is more expensive than full-time hires based on hourly rates alone, so they don’t allocate their budget to interim attorneys. But when you factor in all employee expenses, flexible talent is almost always more cost-effective than hiring full-time positions or outside counsel. 

With flexible talent, you only pay for the hours you need. 

Consider a hypothetical cost comparison between full-time, outside, and interim counsel:

All costs considered, the interim attorney saves the in-house team over $150K. There’s no overhead for benefits, bonuses, equity, and other employee expenses. The flexible rate is also a bargain compared to outside counsel, especially as law firm rates continue to climb.

Want more cost comparisons like these? Check out our ebook, A GC’s Guide to Rightsourcing. 

Plus, with flexible talent, you set the time your interim attorney works. Paragon clients retain and pay their interim attorneys for a set number of hours so they can control and predict their legal spending as workloads fluctuate. 

3. It’s too much work to vet and onboard flexible legal talent for temporary work.

Onboarding an interim attorney requires some effort, but the right flexible legal talent provider will shoulder much of that burden. Look for a partner that:

• Rigorously vets candidates. Before you meet potential interim counsel, your talent provider should interview your business to understand what you’re looking for in an attorney and interview candidates. This vetting process helps the provider find the best fit for your project. 
• Handles employee onboarding (as a W-2), including conducting background checks and administering paperwork, payroll, and benefits to their interim attorney staff. 
• Knows what a good match is in terms of both legal skills and culture fit, so you don’t have to sift through tons of resumes or worry that the candidate won’t work out.
• Supports the attorney throughout the engagement, so you’re not alone in making the partnership successful. Paragon provides ongoing feedback, continuing education, and more to the interim counsel while they’re working for the client.
• Checks in regularly with you to ensure the engagement runs smoothly and address any changes or needs along the way.

Paragon handles all of the above responsibilities and more. Unlike other flexible legal talent providers, we have a dedicated Attorney Development team to help us deliver high-quality service to clients and attorneys alike. This group provides interim attorneys with constant feedback and coaching to provide excellent service and address client concerns as soon as they pop up.

With this support, you only have to spend a few hours getting an interim attorney up to speed—far less time than recruiting and onboarding a full-time employee.

That onboarding investment has a lasting impact. Your interim attorney knows the drill at your company, so they can come back to work after their first engagement as much as needed. 

4. Flexible legal talent isn’t qualified.

There’s a common misconception that interim lawyers are attorneys who couldn’t hack it at a firm. That couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to today’s interim counsel.

Many highly qualified, experienced attorneys choose this path to practice in a way that provides more flexibility—because they have elderly parents or young kids, passions to pursue outside of the law, or want to do great legal work for 40 hours a week instead of 60 to 80. The traditional partner or GC path doesn’t appeal to everyone.

The key is finding a selective legal talent provider that prioritizes the vetting process. At Paragon, we accept less than 5% of the applications we receive and review candidates by conducting: 

• Initial application screenings for practice area expertise and years of experience
• In-depth interviews
• Reference checks 

These vetting steps all happen before a client even meets with a candidate. 

Our talent pool speaks for itself. It includes former senior counsel of tech giants like Adobe, Salesforce, and Twitter, as well as leading law firms. The flexible counsel in our network has practiced law for an average of 15+ years.

Working with a discerning, flexible talent provider gives you access to a network of vetted, accomplished attorneys.

5. Outside counsel and full-time hires are tried-and-true solutions.

When your outside counsel and in-house hiring have worked well enough, it’s natural to question a newer model like on-demand talent. But in an era of tighter budgets and leaner teams, we don’t recommend writing off flexible legal talent services based on newness alone. 

Instead, evaluate providers based on their results and processes with clients. Here are common questions we hear from prospects: 

• What is your project success rate? Paragon’s is over 95%.
• What is your client satisfaction rate? Paragon’s average satisfaction rate is 9.2/10. 
• How many years of experience do your attorneys have, and in what practice areas? Paragon’s talent network averages 15+ years in various areas of law—including privacy, corporate, commercial, IP, and licensing.
• What training and onboarding do you provide? Paragon’s Attorney Development team supports talent and clients with regular coaching sessions throughout client engagements.
• How do you ensure client satisfaction? Every Paragon client has a Client Development team member who is the dedicated point of contact for the engagement. We check in periodically with the client to see how things are going and are available to answer any questions.
• What is your client retention rate? Seventy percent of Paragon’s clients are repeat users, and several have been with us for 10+ years. 

Flexible counsel may be a newer solution for in-house legal teams, but providers like Paragon have a solid track record of high-quality talent and high-touch service.

Find experienced, flexible counsel with Paragon.

There’s a time and place for full-time hires and outside counsel on in-house teams. But many GCs think both are the only available talent solutions. 

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Flexible counsel gives teams specialized expertise, flexible capacity, and significant cost savings compared to law firms or full-time employees. 

Ready to see how on-demand talent can ease your team’s workload and improve your bottom line? Reach out to our team, and we’ll break down our approach to matching top-notch attorneys with in-house teams. Request an attorney today.