Historically, interim legal staffing was often reactive and narrowly scoped. In-house teams frequently turned to interim counsel for administrative overflow rather than strategic legal work. Engagements could be slow to launch, limited in talent selection, and overly transactional — sometimes resulting in mismatches that prevented attorneys from fully integrating or delivering meaningful impact.
Today, flexible legal services offer highly specialized legal talent for specific projects, short-term initiatives, or coverage gaps. Interim attorneys are experienced lawyers who can quickly integrate into in-house legal teams to manage commercial contracting, data privacy, real estate, or intellectual property work.
Many general counsel still hesitate to explore interim legal support. Misconceptions persist, from concerns about cost to doubts about quality. But with increasing pressure to manage legal spend, deliver results, and reduce burnout, it may be time to rethink the old model.
Below, we respond to the most common objections to hiring interim legal counsel and explain how on-demand, top-tier placements can strengthen corporate legal departments across practice areas and industries.
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:
This last point is critical, considering in-house legal teams’ current workloads. According to Bloomberg Law’s 2024 Attorney Well-Being Report, 48% of in-house counsel reported feeling burnt out at least half of the time, and 32% of survey respondents said they have unmanageable workloads. Flexible talent provides much-needed relief to your overworked in-house attorneys without the time and cost of full-time hiring.
At first glance, hourly rates for interim legal counsel may seem higher than what you pay an internal hire. But the comparison stops there. When you factor in benefits, equity, bonuses, and overhead, full-time employees carry significant hidden costs. And outside counsel? According to the ACC 2024 Benchmarking Report, legal departments spend a median of $1.8 million per year on external legal services — a figure that climbs into the eight-figure range for larger organizations.
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.
With flexible talent, you control both the number of hours and the duration your interim attorney works, offering more flexibility and less long-term commitment than a full-time hire. 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.
This is one of the most common concerns among general counsel. And it makes sense — no one wants to waste time onboarding someone who will only be around for a few months. But with the right legal staffing provider, onboarding is faster, easier, and more hands-off than you might expect.
In fact, when onboarding is streamlined and the attorney delivers immediate impact, the ROI becomes clear within the first few weeks, especially compared to the cost and time of hiring for a permanent role.
Here’s what a top-tier provider should handle:
Paragon handles all of the above responsibilities and more. Unlike other flexible legal talent providers, we have a dedicated Attorney Development team to deliver high-quality service to clients and attorneys alike. 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.
More importantly, once someone has ramped up, they can be re-engaged for future specific projects. You gain on-demand legal support with minimal ramp time, which is ideal for fast-moving teams. knows the drill at your company, so they can come back to work after their first engagement as much as needed.
There’s a lingering perception that interim attorneys are somehow less experienced or are between jobs. In reality, today’s interim legal talent includes some of the most seasoned professionals in the legal industry. Many interim lawyers prefer this level of flexibility over the grind of traditional law firms or full-time in-house roles.
Paragon’s network includes legal professionals who have spent decades in senior roles at top companies like Salesforce, X, and Adobe, as well as leading law firms. On average, our attorneys have 15+ years of experience across practice areas such as data privacy, commercial contracting, intellectual property, real estate, and corporate governance.
Our vetting process is designed to ensure quality:
This process allows corporate legal departments to quickly access top-tier talent without sifting through resumes or taking a risk on untested candidates. And you can do it all while avoiding the premium rates typically associated with outside counsel.
If you’re hiring for high-impact work provided by senior legal counsel for M&A, product counseling, or regulatory risk, interim legal counsel is not a downgrade. In fact, it’s often an upgrade in experience and speed to impact.
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 dismissing flexible legal talent services based on newness alone.
Instead, evaluate providers based on their results and client relationships. Here are common questions we hear from prospects:
Flexible counsel may be a newer solution for some in-house legal teams, but Paragon Legal (entering its 20th year in business in 2026) has a solid track record of high-quality talent and high-touch service.
Fast-growing SaaS companies often assume only full-time hires or large law firms can support the complexity and speed of their legal needs. But interim legal counsel can be exactly the right solution, especially when timelines are short, hiring is slow, and the work is highly specialized.
One legal tech client came to Paragon with a pressing need. They had reorganized their sales team and launched a new initiative focused on state, local, and education (SLED) contracts. But no one on their in-house legal team had experience with public sector procurement, and the volume of contracts was skyrocketing.
They originally planned to hire an FTE, but then they turned to Paragon for interim help. We sourced a commercial contracting with the required government contracts experience attorney who could quickly integrate, align risk with aggressive growth goals, and operate independently.
Here’s what made the placement successful:
The result? The client:
It was a cost-effective, high-impact solution that scaled legal capacity in sync with business demand.
In highly regulated industries like life sciences and biotech, it’s easy to assume only entrenched in-house counsel or major law firms can handle the complexity. But that’s no longer true. Many of today’s interim attorneys come from senior roles in pharmaceutical, diagnostics, and medical device companies.
Biotech teams benefit from interim legal talent who can:
A global medical device company needed urgent support to help with clinical trials, privacy regulations, and contract lifecycle management (CLM). In response, Paragon deployed a phased solution in the form of three interim legal experts with targeted experience:
The client avoided over $2 million in legal spend by using this cost-effective, high-skill trio instead of a large external firm — all while building sustainable internal infrastructure.
Fintech legal teams often juggle high-volume commercial contracting, rapidly shifting regulations, and the need to support innovation without slowing it down. Paragon’s network includes attorneys with deep fintech and financial services experience, many of whom have served in-house at leading startups and publicly traded companies.
Here’s how on-demand legal services support fintech teams:
A top U.S. fintech lender needed immediate legal support to handle an overwhelming volume of inbound vendor contracts and privacy work while recruiting for permanent roles.
Paragon deployed a three-person interim legal team, including a fintech-savvy procurement attorney and two contract negotiators. This high-performing unit cleared the backlog, built long-term processes, and saved the client significantly on legal spend, ultimately leading to the client converting one of the interim attorneys into a full-time hire.
The combined hourly rate of $615 for all three attorneys was a fraction of big-firm costs, enabling the client to move fast and smart.
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 legal department’s workload and improve your bottom line? Reach out, and we’ll break down our approach to matching top-notch attorneys with in-house teams. Request an attorney today.
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