Five years ago, remote hiring was a niche practice that often involved professionals in the creative and marketing fields. This changed when entire industries were required to go remote almost literally overnight. People at jobs where in-person work was considered necessary discovered ways to remain productive and efficient while working remotely. It was a crash-course in how to manage a workforce that was not all in the same place.
This paradigm shift remained, to some extent, even after lockdowns were over and many workers returned to the office. The legal field saw some of its biggest players allow employees to remain remote. Although many firms and legal departments moved back to onsite work for most of their employees, the idea of remote work is no longer as foreign as it was in 2019.
There are definite bonuses to hiring remotely, but sometimes, you need an employee onsite. How can you weigh these needs to determine the best choice for you and your department?
Increased flexibility attracts top legal talent. If you want the best people on your team, you’ll need to ensure that you’re offering a situation that meets their needs. The flexibility of remote work can be a big draw for those at the top of the field.
The ability to work with qualified talent outside your hiring range. The best hire for your company might live across the country. If you’re hiring onsite, that candidate likely won’t consider your position. However, if you’re hiring a remote employee, you have access to legal talent all over the country (and possibly the world). Your chances of finding a candidate who is particularly suited for your position skyrocket.
Cost savings. When compared to hiring a full-time, onsite attorney, the price tag for a remote employee is typically much lower. Since expenses relating to office space, utilities, and infrastructure are limited to remote employees, you get a lot more bang for your buck.
Productivity and enhanced performance. Remote employees will be working in a space that they custom-designed. Since they’re not required to adapt to how things are done in the office, this can make them more productive, ensuring that every dollar spent provides an excellent return on investment.
The Benefits of Onsite Legal Teams
There can be benefits to bringing lawyers onsite, as well. They include:
More informal collaboration opportunities. As employees go through their day, they’re in close contact with their colleagues. This sets them up for impromptu or spontaneous meetings that can help develop new ideas. Decision-making can also happen faster, as everyone involved can sit down at the same time rather than trying to coordinate virtual meetings.
Potential for improved team culture and mentorship opportunities. Junior attorneys often benefit from learning on the job. There are more opportunities for this sort of learning when all attorneys are present in the same office.
Increasing client and stakeholder trust. Onsite legal departments have been the norm for many years. Some executives may prefer to meet with legal departments in person, especially for high-stakes or sensitive matters.
Paragon Legal has nearly 20 years of experience answering the question of remote or onsite hiring. Here’s the general framework we use to inform our decisions.
Step 1: Evaluate Your True Onsite Needs
The first step is to consider the work that your new hire will be performing. Are there tasks that must be done in the office? Meetings that the legal department is expected to attend? Databases that can only be accessed onsite?
Consider, as well, security and privacy issues. It’s easier to control data security when employees are on-site and using standardized equipment and programs. However, with a robust remote data security protocol, many of these issues can be addressed when it comes to offsite work.
Collaboration is another aspect to consider. While technology makes it possible for remote employees to participate in meetings, it can also introduce a feeling of distance between current staff and your new hire. Does your team engage in a lot of brainstorming sessions where everyone yells out their thoughts and builds on what others have said? You might lean towards hiring someone in person. But if your team communicates via Slack even when they’re all in the same room, a remote hire could be a better fit.
Step 2: Explore Remote Work Options
Even if you suspect you need someone onsite, it can be useful to consider how many of your needs could be met with a remote or hybrid employee. The potential cost savings and access to a wider talent pool can make a remote or partially remote position the right decision. It’s worth putting some thought into what parts of your needed position don’t have to be done onsite.
Perform a workload audit to determine where current staff is spending time. Could some of those tasks be assigned to a remote worker, leaving current onsite staff available for work that must be done in the office?
Consider creating a formal communication policy that will be followed both by onsite employees and remote workers. Invest in collaboration tools that will allow teams to feel connected, even if they’re physically distant. The rewards of building a cohesive team identity will be worth it.
Step 3: If Hiring Remotely, Navigate Leadership Mandates and Build a Case for Flexibility
Sometimes, the largest roadblocks to creative staffing options come from higher up. If leadership doesn’t understand the advantages or benefits of hiring remote staff, it can be a hard sell. New ways of hiring involve new processes. Human Resources might push back against what they see as insurmountable issues with reconciling current policies with remote work.
Arm yourself with appropriate data before you make your case. Show what an average hiring timeline looks like, including projections on how long it might take to find a suitable employee within your geographical area. Could remote hiring speed up that process by opening up the talent pool?
Hiring a contractor to test out remote work can be a low-risk way to evaluate whether it can work for you and your department. Contractors often work without long-term contracts or commitments, giving you the chance to evaluate and refine how remote work might look in your department.
Step 4: Avoid the Pressure to Compromise
Staffing needs can lead to urgency, and that can cause you to hire someone who isn’t the best fit for your company. When there’s work that needs to be done now, sometimes it’s easier to focus on “right now” than it is to focus on “right.”
This can be a major mistake. Employees who aren’t good fits for your company are not likely to make your life easier. Instead, you might be faced with new problems (including having to hire for the position again when the employee leaves for a job for which they’re better suited).
Whether you’re hiring onsite or remote, take the time to find someone who will fit in with your team. Patience in the hiring process will be a sound investment when you find the perfect candidate for you.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the decision to hire remote or onsite lawyers depends on the specific needs and values of the legal department.
For teams seeking flexibility, access to a broader talent pool, and cost savings, remote work may be the better option.
On the other hand, for those prioritizing collaboration, security, and maintaining strong interpersonal relationships, on-site work may be the optimal choice.
In some cases, a hybrid model, combining the best of both worlds, could offer the perfect solution. Legal leaders must weigh these factors carefully and consider what will align best with their long-term goals and the unique demands of their team.
Does remote hiring sound like a good fit for your company? We’re here to help. Reach out to Paragon Legal to see how we can create a custom staffing solution for you.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2534046399.jpg10241024competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-10-22 12:42:102025-05-14 14:20:46Onsite or Remote: What Makes the Most Sense For Your Business?
At Paragon Legal, we are proud to celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month this October! We believe in fostering inclusive workplaces that empower everyone to succeed. To help raise awareness and support your own efforts, we’ve curated a list of valuable resources. Together, we can continue to create opportunities that make a difference.
Corporate legal departments don’t have the best reputation for diversity. Some might argue that the makeup of these departments reflects who is graduating from law school, but that’s not the case. Today’s law students are an incredibly diverse group that brings a wealth of unique experiences to the legal field.
Paragon Legal recognizes and celebrates this diversity. That’s why we created the Paragon Legal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Career Connect program.
The program began in 2022 as a partnership between Paragon Legal, Affirm, Dropbox, and UC Hastings College of the Law (now University of California College of the Law, San Francisco). It aims to increase the talent and diversity of in-house legal teams by offering recent law school graduates an in-house position with a Bay Area tech company.
The program expanded nationwide in its second year, including the Santa Clara University School of Law, William & Mary Law School, and additional leading industry partners.
How does the Career Connect program work?
The Paragon Career Connect program matches law school graduates with in-house legal departments to support their entry into the workplace while further developing their legal skills and gaining industry experience. Here are the basics:
Application. Prospective participants complete an application. This helps us determine who is best suited for the program. Candidates provide a statement about what they think their unique background and perspective will bring to an in-house legal team. Promising candidates may be invited for an interview with Paragon Legal.
Matching. Once we have chosen our participants, we’ll match them with an in-house legal department.
Training. Participants will receive training and onboarding to set them up for success in their new role. Training will continue through the course of the program.
Mentorship. Members of Paragon Legal’s staff will work one-on-one with program members to ensure that they are supported in their placement.
The program has benefits for law schools, law graduates,and legal departments.
Legal graduates receive ongoing training and experience in how an in-house legal department works. In addition, they have the opportunity to build connections within the legal industry.
Law schools are able to offer a specialized experience for students that they might not otherwise have available. If potential students are interested in working in-house, this can help law schools with recruiting efforts.
Companies have the opportunity to work with new law school graduates and help shape their understanding of what it means to work in-house. In addition, the Career Connect program will give in-house departments access to students who are both promising and diverse. If they’re looking to expand their department, these hand-picked candidates are an attractive hiring pool.
Success stories from participating law schools
Here’s how the Paragon Career Connect program is making a difference for our participants.
University of California College of Law, San Francisco
Born in Iran, Famy Chavosh and her family moved to California when she was young. After graduating from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law), Famy was a member of the inaugural class of the Paragon Career Connect program. Her undergraduate degree in business gave her an entrepreneurial mindset. She set her sights on an in-house position while she was still in law school, but she found that her education focused more on traditional career paths like private practice.
Famy immediately saw the opportunity offered by the Career Connect program. She applied, thinking “it was too good to be true.” After her acceptance to what she called a “rare opportunity,” Famy realized that the program delivered on its promises. She was placed at financial tech company Affirm, and her education continued.
Famy appreciated the opportunity to get hands-on experience in a legal department and enjoyed the chance to work on a team that was cross-functional. “There is no such thing as being “specialized” and sticking to that specialty when working in-house,” she said. Everyone in Legal touches every aspect of the legal review process.”
When asked whether this is an opportunity other law school graduates should pursue, Famy said, “I would definitely recommend this route to graduating 3Ls who are looking to enter straight into the in-house realm. The support Paragon offered throughout the process helped me feel prepared to pursue my goals.”
Fellow UC Law SF graduate Maryam Quasto was another member of the inaugural class of the Career Connect program. She was drawn to the program’s goal of diversity and inclusion, saying, “Career Connect’s focus on diversity matters to me. As an Iraqi immigrant and first-generation lawyer in the United States, it is important to me to see more representation in the legal field. I believe that my background and culture provide me with a distinctive legal perspective.”
Maryam was matched with tech company Dropbox, where she worked with senior attorneys on tasks like data privacy negotiations. “One of the most surprising aspects of starting my career in-house has been the ability to really take a hands-on approach to learning the profession. Early on, I was assigned my own workload and clients to manage, and that in and of itself created a unique opportunity to practice the law,” she said.
Dropbox was clearly impressed with Maryam: at the end of the program, they offered her a full-time job in their legal department. When asked what advice she had for law school students, Maryam said, “I advise any law student curious about corporate law and in-house life to be open-minded and willing to learn!”
Santa Clara University School of Law
In its second year, the Paragon Career Connect Program expanded to more law schools. For Debbie Snyder, Assistant Dean of Career Management at Santa Clara University School of Law, working with Paragon “made sense.” She points to the diversity of SCUSL as one reason this collaboration works so well. “Your first legal career opportunity lays the foundation for your professional journey, shapes your growth as a legal professional, and sets the trajectory for your future success. It has the power to shape the impact you can make in the world, and we are thrilled to bring this opportunity to students alongside Paragon,” Ms. Snyder said.
How can my law school participate in Career Connect?
Law school graduates are a diverse bunch. One of the best ways to ensure this diversity is integrated into the legal field in general is by supporting these graduates in making connections with in-house legal departments.
If your law school has a commitment to diversity and inclusion, we’d love to talk with you about a partnership with Paragon Legal’s Career Connect program. We are committed to expanding this program so other law school graduates can benefit. If you think this program may be a good fit for your school, please contact our team at Daphne@paragonlegal.com. We’re here to answer your questions and provide any additional information you might need.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/shutterstock_501785887.jpg6971000competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-09-12 11:06:162025-06-04 10:20:26The Paragon Career Connect Program: A Partnership to Foster Inclusivity
Rightsourcing can help in-house legal teams that have too little time and too much that needs to get done.
Interim legal professionals may be more cost-effective than outside counsel.
Legal-specific AI tools can dramatically speed up time-intensive tasks like contract review and redlining.
It’s no secret that in-house legal teams are being asked to do more with less. This can be particularly noticeable in areas where legal teams have historically relied on outside counsel. Since work demands tend to ebb and flow, it’s typically not cost-effective to make a new hire, but, as budgets fall, outside counsel may become too costly.
The solution is interim support. If you can hire a skilled interim employee just for those times when you need an extra hand, you reduce the cost while still receiving the support you need. Now imagine that interim employee has the ability to do more in less time, making them substantially more efficient.
All of this is possible through the combination of rightsourcing and advanced technological tools that harness the power of AI.
What is Rightsourcing?
Paragon Legal President and COO Jessica Markowitz defines rightsourcing as “the right work getting done at the right time by the right people using the right technology.” Let’s break that down.
The right work: Outsourcing work becomes less attractive if extensive training is required to get any interim employees up to speed. You need trained and qualified legal professionals who are ready to hit the ground running and can help with the work you need done from day 1.
The right time: Although there is no such thing as an average day on an in-house legal team, some times are reliably busier than others. You’re going to need more attorneys available when working on meeting a compliance deadline or completing a quarter than you will during down times. No amount of shifting work will completely eliminate this feast-and-famine cycle of work. You’re going to need help.
The right people: The wrong person can create far more work than they alleviate. You need someone who can fit into your existing system and work with current staff. Unfortunately, these people aren’t always easy to find when you need them.
The right technology: Much like the right people, technology can either simplify things or complicate them. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s hard to know which technology will be a net benefit without going through a long period of evaluation, implementation, and onboarding. This is particularly true when it comes to new technology like generative AI (GAI).
Considerations When Using AI in Legal
The horror stories are well-known at this point: attorneys who have cited fictional caselaw or otherwise been misled by GAI, often with catastrophic results from formal sanctions to having pleadings struck. Part of this is a misunderstanding of GAI’s purpose and capabilities: it is not necessarily intended to be a research reference, and, if it cannot find the information it’s looking for, it can sometimes ‘hallucinate,’ or create something out of nothing. To say that this is a problem in legal work is an understatement.
However, AI also offers many benefits to lawyers, law firms, and legal departments. AI is much better at comparing internal consistency in a document than a human, for example. It can also evaluate large amounts of data very quickly. If used correctly, AI has the ability to make legal work much faster and more efficient.
There are several products on the market intended to make AI more efficient, accurate, and useful for the legal field. These products should be evaluated very carefully to ensure that they respect data privacy and security, but once due diligence is performed, these programs have the potential to revolutionize the legal field.
Rightsourcing and AI
Efficiency looks much different for legal services that rely on billable hours than it does for in-house teams. In fact, it may seem counterproductive for some lawyers to improve efficiency: the billable hour system rewards thorough contemplation over speed. And there is a case to be made for thorough contemplation. However, not every legal matter requires the original thinking that you’re paying for when you use a big law firm for outside counsel.
Particularly when you’re hiring for day-to-day tasks, task efficiency can help stretch your outsourcing budget even further. If an attorney is completing routine tasks, a thoroughly-evaluated AI solution that is designed for use in the legal field can compound the amount of work that can be done in an hour.
Screens.ai
Screens.ai is a perfect example of this fusion of technology and human knowledge. It’s an AI-powered solution to assist with contract review and redlining. Contracts are put through screens, which are a set of standards that need to be met in a particular type of contract or transaction. Users can use pre-made screens that were created by legal experts or make their own customized screens.
This solution can dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes to review and redline a contract. However, the time savings is negated if it’s difficult to audit what the AI did and why it did it. Screens.ai resolves this issue by offering users the opportunity to accept, modify, or reject suggestions, as well as offering the ability to easily audit changes made.
Use of this software for contract review can dramatically speed up the process by flagging areas that would benefit from the attorney’s attention for manual review. In addition, Screens.ai has the benefit of quickly standardizing language throughout the contract.
Benefits of Using AI with Interim Support
Does it really save time if you need to train interim support on how to use this new technology? Obviously, it’s ideal if the interim talent is already trained on these new tools.
That’s why legal professionals at Paragon Legal are provided with a complimentary Paragon Contract AI Bundle that utilizes the power of Screens.ai. When you hire one of our team members, you’re not only getting an amazing, qualified attorney — you’re getting one who is equipped with the tools to make them even more efficient.
This can also be a cost-effective way to try new technology or see how it might be integrated into your current department. Working with an interim attorney who is equipped and trained in the newest AI technology can help you decide whether the technology is worth investing time and energy into.
Looking to the Future of In-House Legal
Things are changing for in-house legal teams, and it doesn’t seem that things will be calming down anytime soon. Legal departments will continue to be asked to improve efficiency without sacrificing outcomes. The current way that many departments utilize outside counsel may no longer be feasible.
However, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By embracing both qualified flex talent and technology tools, including AI, legal teams can respond to these challenges with imagination and agility.
If you’re considering working with interim legal counsel, we’d love to speak with you about your use case. Get in touch with us to discuss how we can help rightsource your legal team with the people and tools you need to succeed.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/shutterstock_2309557523.jpg5631000Kristen Poor/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgKristen Poor2024-08-16 10:43:092024-08-16 10:43:11Interim Support, Rightsourcing, and AI in Legal Practice
Paragon Legal, a woman-founded and women-led enterprise providing high-quality flexible legal talent to in-house legal teams, is thrilled to announce its selection by Mitratech’s AdvanceLaw to join its innovative data-driven outside counsel marketplace. This partnership signifies Paragon Legal’s continued commitment to delivering exceptional legal services and showcases its unique value proposition in the Alternative Legal Service Provider (ALSP) market.
Extensive Vetting Process and Unique Differentiators
Paragon Legal was chosen after a rigorous vetting process, which included comprehensive rounds of evaluations, client reference checks, and consultations with industry leaders and AdvanceLaw members. This extensive vetting highlighted Paragon Legal’s superior client service, commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), and its innovative approach to flexible legal talent to support short and medium-term in-house team needs, including workload management, interim and gap support, project-based support, temp-to-perm, and specialized expertise.
“When we started this process, we didn’t anticipate the distinct differentiators that would emerge. Paragon Legal’s dedication to client outcomes, thoughtful growth, and technology adoption truly set them apart,” said Aaron Kotok, Executive Director at Mitratech’s AdvanceLaw. “We see a growing segment of client needs—secondments being an excellent example—that are a lose/lose value proposition for law firms and general counsel. Paragon Legal’s flexible talent solutions present a win-win scenario.”
Why AdvanceLaw Chose Paragon Legal
Client-Centric Philosophy: The vetting process revealed Paragon Legal’s focus on client service, diversity, and a “hungry” posture that prioritizes client outcomes while nurturing and developing deployed talent.
Impressive Client Impact Stats: Paragon Legal boasts an industry-leading Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 79, an average satisfaction rating of 9.2 out of 10 from clients, and 9.4 out of 10 from placed attorneys.
Experienced and Diverse Team: Over 90% of Paragon’s candidates have in-house experience, and more than 45% of the corporate and attorney team identify as people of color.
Strong Track Record and Quality: Client reference calls demonstrated a history of attentive service, experienced attorneys, and well-curated matches, supporting clients’ commercial and tech transactions, privacy, employment, product counseling, and niche regulatory needs.
Commitment to Talent Development: Paragon Legal invests in training and development for its deployed talent base and provides them with advanced AI tools and training to drive client efficiency and productivity.
Industry and Practice Area Focus: Paragon Legal aligns with AdvanceLaw’s secondment and resourcing demands in sectors such as technology, healthcare, biotech, manufacturing, and CPG, and practice areas such as commercial and technology transactions, privacy, and employment.
Impact and Commitment
“Paragon Legal is honored to begin supporting AdvanceLaw’s general counsel. After being evaluated versus other major providers in the flex legal talent space, we are proud to be selected and to showcase our unique differentiators,” said Trista Engel, CEO of Paragon Legal. “We are excited for this esteemed group of 350 GCs to see how our flexible talent solutions can enhance their team’s productivity and budget.”
About Paragon Legal
Paragon Legal provides legal departments at leading corporations with high quality, flexible legal talent to help them meet their changing workload demands. At the same time, we offer talented attorneys and other legal professionals a way to practice law outside the traditional career path, empowering them to achieve both their professional and personal goals. For more information about Paragon Legal and its services, please visit www.paragonlegal.com.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/PL-press-release-image.png500900competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-08-07 09:35:232025-05-14 14:23:32Paragon Legal Celebrates Exclusive Selection by AdvanceLaw for Innovative Legal Marketplace
Mitratech’s data-driven outside counsel marketplace announces its expansion into the alternative legal services market, growing its panel to 12,000+ lawyers across 22 providers.
Austin, TX (August 6, 2024) – In its 14th year, AdvanceLaw’s $100M legal marketplace helps General Counsel (GCs) select outside lawyers based on strong performance for peers, rather than using brand or high rates as a proxy for quality. The company continues its mission to suggest the best-qualified, best-value legal resources in 2024 by adding two alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) to its vetted panel: Paragon Legal and QuisLex.
“We see a growing segment of client needs — secondments being an excellent example — that are a lose/lose-value proposition for large law firms and general counsel, leaving both sides unhappy with the economics,” said Aaron Kotok, Executive Director at Mitratech’s AdvanceLaw.
Paragon Legal, a woman-founded and women-led enterprise, provides U.S.-based flexible staffing to support short and medium-term in-house talent needs created by overflow work, parental leaves, staff turnover, or company growth. Client engagements extend nationwide and across practice areas, including commercial contracting, privacy, employment, product counseling and niche regulatory support. Based in the Bay Area, Paragon has established a strong track record of success for leading clients, including several AdvanceLaw members. Its leadership’s laser focus on achieving stellar client outcomes was a key differentiator in the vetting process, supported by investments to drive efficiency and productivity for clients such as i) training and development support for Paragon’s deployed talent base and ii) providing AI tools and training to deployed talent.
“We are thrilled to begin supporting AdvanceLaw GCs. We work hard to ensure our clients receive top talent and 5-star service, and we are excited for this group of 350 GCs to see how flexible talent can enhance their team’s productivity and budget,” said Trista Engel, CEO, Paragon Legal.
QuisLex, a certified Minority Business Enterprise and AdvanceLaw’s other new ALSP addition, has provided managed legal services to GCs for 20+ years. The company’s ability to create top-quality solutions that pair innovative technologies (including generative AI) with the company’s 1000-strong stable of lawyers and rigorous quality control allows QuisLex to support clients outside the traditional litigation and M&A document review space, designing creative solutions for a growing range of legal and compliance use cases.
“AdvanceLaw’s peer performance evaluation model is an ideal way to introduce new GCs to what ASLPs can deliver, since there is uneven adoption across legal teams and very significant value to be created. We are excited for GCs to begin hearing from their peers about the results they have achieved with our team!” said Sirisha Gummaregula, COO at QuisLex.
Both Paragon and QuisLex were subject to rigorous vetting and client reference checks throughout the selection process. “Many in-house counsel are new to ALSPs and find it hard to navigate between providers. Our vetting surfaced important differentiators we think clients will really value, and we are excited to share those with our GC community,”” said Owen Bevan, AdvanceLaw’s Managing Director.
Paragon Legal and QuisLex’s new capabilities complement captive offerings at several current AdvanceLaw firms. Pinsent Masons’ Vario team provides flexible staffing services in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, UAE, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Africa, in addition to managed services that include outsourced company secretarial support. McCarthy Tetrault’s MT > Align model provides flexible staffing services in Canada, alongside managed services in corporate, litigation, and immigration.
“Having vetted ALSPs be accountable to peer GCs for their performance will give our clients even more confidence to create bold change,” said Katherine Shell, VP of AdvanceLaw’s outside counsel transformation consulting team.
Paragon Legal and QuisLex join AdvanceLaw’s global panel of 20 leading law firms across the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Collectively, AdvanceLaw panel members employ over 12,000 attorneys. To learn more about the AdvanceLaw panel providers please visit our website at https://www.advancelaw.com/firms/. To learn more about becoming an AdvanceLaw member legal department, please get in touch at info@advancelaw.com.
About Mitratech
Mitratech is a proven global technology partner for corporate legal, risk, compliance, and HR professionals seeking to maximize productivity, control expense, and mitigate risk by deepening organizational alignment, increasing visibility, and spurring collaboration across an enterprise. Mitratech serves over 20,000 organizations worldwide, spanning more than 160 countries.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/shutterstock_2489828181.jpg5621000competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-08-06 11:07:302025-05-14 14:18:08Mitratech AdvanceLaw Expands Legal Marketplace With New Alternative Legal Service Providers Paragon Legal and QuisLex
Trista Engel, CEO of Paragon Legal, and Jessica Markowitz, President & COO of Paragon Legal, share their journey from the 2008 Wall Street Financial Crisis to raising money to buy Paragon Legal, and now successfully growing the business. Listen to this inspiring journey. What were and how did they overcome the Gender Stereotypes and challenges they faced raising money and pitching VCs? Why did they select Paragon Legal, and how has flex talent changed and encouraged diverse legal talent to not only stay in the profession but use Paragon Legal as a springboard to launch their career?
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/shutterstock_2110725674.jpg5231000competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-08-05 13:24:052025-05-14 13:57:49Centerforce Journeys to Equity Podcast: An Entrepreneurs Journey from Wall Street to Paragon Legal
We take pride in the Paragon Difference: offering strategic partnerships, high-precision matching, and exceptional service.
79 NPS Score
Paragon Legal has maintained industry-leading client and attorney satisfaction ratings. Our NPS soared above 70, setting a new standard in the industry.
86 Percent of respondents gave Paragon a 9 or 10
Our reputation as the “Gold Standard” is backed by our clients’ feedback. According to a recent market survey, clients, former clients, and prospective clients alike praised the quality of our talent and the personalized approach we bring to each engagement.
80 Attorney NPS score
Our attorney NPS has remained consistently above 80, reflecting our unwavering commitment to excellence.
*NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. Respondents were asked to rate their willingness to recommend Paragon on a 0-10 scale with “0” a “not at all likely” and “10” a “highly likely”. 10s and 9s are considered promoters. 7s and 8s are Passives. And below 7 is considered a detractor. NPS is arrived at by subtracting the % of detractors from the % of promoters.
Key benefits of using ALSPs include scalability, cost savings, access to specialized expertise, and innovative legal tech—without the overhead of full-time hires or typical law firm rates.
Flexible legal talent providers, legal process outsourcing providers, and the Big Four accounting firms are the three main types of ALSPs.
Picture this: Your company has an upcoming product launch, and your in-house attorneys are swamped with tasks to finish by the end of the quarter. They have to establish the business’s IP rights, secure liability insurance, and check the product’s safety, among other responsibilities.
Outside counsel could help ease the workload, but firm attorneys typically require a lot of oversight and work slowly because they’re especially risk-averse. Their high fees also significantly cut into the company’s revenue.
Sound familiar? If you’re a GC or legal operations leader, you’ve likely been in similar situations more times than you care to admit. You’re not alone in feeling frustrated with the traditional law firm model.
Now, imagine another solution—one that could provide the expertise you need when you need it and without breaking the bank.
Looking for a Top Alternative Legal Service Provider?
Discover Paragon: Flexible, top-tier legal talent for your evolving business needs.
Enter Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs). In this post, we’ll demystify the term and show you how ALSPs can be a game-changer for your in-house team. We’ll cover:
The key differences between ALSPs and law firms
4 strategic benefits of partnering with an ALSP
Real-world case studies of in-house teams achieving success with ALSPs
By the end, you’ll clearly understand how ALSPs can help you boost efficiency, access specialized expertise, and lower costs.
What is an Alternative Legal Service Provider?
ALSP is a broad term that refers to any organization providing legal services that isn’t a law firm.
Outside counsel was the legal industry norm for a long time, but demand for ALSPs grew over the last 10 years as cost reduction became more critical to in-house teams. Reuters’ 2023 report shows that the ALSP market has grown by 145% since 2015, and its 2021 survey found that 71% of corporate law departments rely on ALSPs.
What are the most common types of ALSPs?
1. Flexible legal talent providers
Flexible legal talent providerspair temporary legal professionals with corporate legal departments. Organizations like Paragon exclusively offer interim attorneys with years of in-house experience in specialized practice areas, ensuring they can handle complex tasks that require expertise and judgment. They work closely with in-house counsel—participating in meetings, collaborating on projects, and contributing to strategic decision-making.
Other flexible talent providers focus on staffing for repetitive, high-volume work that doesn’t necessarily require an attorney license. These companies typically provide temporary paralegals and legal secretaries along with attorneys.
2. Legal process outsourcing providers (LPOs)
LPOs handle repetitive tasks that require minimal expertise—such as document review, data entry, and basic contract management.
These providers often rely on overseas talent and automation to minimize costs, and they typically work independently with limited direct collaboration with the client’s legal department. This talent solution is best for teams that need support for repetitive legal work at a low cost and don’t need to work closely with the service provider.
3. The Big Four accounting firms
The Big Four accounting firms (PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte) offer routine legal services that complement their primary accounting work.
These ALSPs attract clients with their multi-purpose offerings. Because their staff includes a variety of business professionals—not just attorneys—these firms can offer diverse service bundles. However, the Big Four was the slowest-growing ALSP segment in Reuters’ 2023 report, making up just $1.5B of the $20B ALSP market.
4 Strategic Benefits of Using an ALSP
1. Scalability and Flexibility
Unlike hiring full-time attorneys, ALSPs let you scale your resources up or down based on your legal needs.
Imagine your legal department only needs 20 weekly hours from an attorney to help with sales negotiations over the next quarter. Instead of bringing on a full-time, permanent employee, you could hire an interim attorney for just that time. You can add or cut hours from your interim attorney based on how your team’s workload changes.
With this scalability, your in-house team can remain nimble when the economy, your business, or your budget unexpectedly shifts.
2. Cost Savings
ALSPs’ flexibility helps in-house teams avoid wasteful spending. Instead of relying on costly full-time attorneys or outside counsel for every task, you can use ALSPs to complete most of your in-house work at a more cost-effective rate (without compromising on quality).
Imagine you’re a part of a small in-house team for a company that’s about to go through a merger. Your full-time attorneys will need to dedicate significant time to this project over the next year, so you use an ALSP like Paragon to backfill the team’s day-to-day legal work.
Here’s a breakdown of how much the ALSP route would save your team over a year based on current rates—roughly $150,000 compared to a full-time hire and $350,000 compared to using outside counsel.
Flexible legal talent providers, like Paragon, have networks of attorneys with diverse backgrounds in many practice areas. Unlike outside counsel, interim attorneys from these providers work directly with your team at the pace your business needs. You can tap into niche legal expertise that may not be available in-house without resorting to costly law firms or new hires.
Say you need help with a regulatory compliance issue. A flexible legal talent provider can connect you with a seasoned expert in that field, like Paragon’s interim attorney Danny J.
He has over ten years of experience, specializes in compliance, and just spent nine months handling regulatory investigations for a social media tech company.
4. Access to innovative legal tech
Law firms are often slow to learn and adopt new technologies. They’re worried about these tools’ creating security risks, and they can’t bill their clients for learning how to use the latest software.
Meanwhile, ALSPs typically create and/or use innovative legal tech to work more efficiently and precisely than competitors. This software ranges from document management systems to contract lifecycle management tools and AI-powered legal research and analytics platforms.
Paragon, for example, recently formed a partnership with Screens.ai, an artificial intelligence-based contract review software for legal teams. Looking ahead, we expect more in-house teams to use tech platforms as AI tools become better at handling legal workflows.
How In-House Teams are Using ALSPs: 3 Case Studies
To better understand ALSPs’ value, let’s dive into how several companies relied on Paragon as their flexible legal talent provider.
1. Expanding a Medical Device Company’s Legal Team
Before engaging Paragon, a fast-growing medical devices company faced several major legal challenges. Paragon’s interim attorneys were able to resolve each problem promptly.
The business’ in-house global clinical trials attorney was drowning in negotiation work and needed support. Paragon deployed a corporate attorney with 20+ years of experience in clinical trials.
The medical business’ commercial contracts team didn’t have an effective process for handling its increasing number of procurement contracts. Paragon deployed an experienced contracts attorney who optimized the company’s CLM processes.
The medical business needed a privacy law expert. Paragon deployed an attorney with a background in healthcare compliance to ensure the company’s medical devices complied with US and EU regulations.
The client accessed Paragon’s talent at a combined hourly rate of $605, compared to a law firm completing the same work at an estimated $2,000 per hour. Altogether, the switch to interim counsel saved the business over $2.3 million in one year.
2. Conquering Overflow Work for a Software Giant
A Fortune 500 software company faced unpredictable spikes in legal work due to rapid growth, new product launches, and regulatory changes. They needed highly skilled, flexible help to address overflow work in commercial transactions, procurement, antitrust, privacy, and marketing.
Paragon provided the business with experienced interim counsel who handled a variety of tasks, including:
Outbound commercial transactions
Contract review and negotiation
Antitrust regulations
Privacy regulatory investigations
Product marketing campaigns
Procurement concerns
Adtech and marketing issues
These attorneys seamlessly integrated with the software company, impressing the legal team with their communication skills and ability to work autonomously.
The successful engagement led to an ongoing relationship, with the client engaging Paragon 20 times over the last four years and converting three interim attorneys to full-time employees.
3. Supporting a Cybersecurity Startup During Transitions
Synack, a Series D cybersecurity startup with a two-person legal team, faced a challenge when its corporate counsel went on maternity leave. Steve Soper, Synack’s Vice President of Legal, turned to Paragon for an interim counsel solution.
Paragon matched Synack with David, an experienced lawyer who quickly integrated with the team. David oversaw contract issues, provided legal support on employment and corporate matters, and ensured the team met their internal SLA for contract review response times. He worked twenty hours per week, billing only for the time engaged.
After David’s initial engagement ended, Steve reached out to Paragon to engage him for a second time on short notice. The company’s corporate counsel had just quit her role, so David’s prior experience and knowledge of Synack’s business were invaluable.
Synack eventually hired a new corporate counsel, but Steve noted he wouldn’t be surprised if he re-engages David or another Paragon attorney.
“Given his knowledge of the company, it’s just super-nice, from my perspective, to be able to say, ‘Hey David, can you come back for a couple weeks to look at some contracts?’” said Steve.
Manage your team’s overflow work with ALSPs
Whether you need to expand your team’s capacity, fill a temporary gap, or access niche expertise, ALSPs are worth considering as an alternative to outside counsel or full-time hiring. They help in-house departments reduce costs, work more efficiently, and keep stakeholders happy.
If you’re considering leveraging ALSPs, Paragon Legal can help. We provide legal departments with tailored interim counsel solutions using our extensive network of experienced attorneys.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you rightsource your way to legal department success.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/shutterstock_1199129155.jpg6671000competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-07-23 10:43:272025-05-19 10:01:47Alternative Legal Service Providers: What are they and when to use them
Are you an attorney, law firm, or in-house legal team curious about responsibly adopting AI, up-skilling your workforce, and positioning yourself as an innovator in an AI-driven future?
Watch our webinar on-demand to shed light on the path to being at the forefront of generative AI for Law.
Featured Speakers:
Jessica Markowitz, President and COO of Paragon Legal
Otto Hanson, Founder and CEO of TermScout and Screens.ai
Key Takeaways:
Learn how Paragon Legal, a leading legal services provider, is integrating cutting-edge generative AI technology from Screens.ai into their legal workflows and processes. Gain insight from Paragon and Screens.ai’s vision, approach, and real-world use cases demonstrating how this collaboration enhances efficiency, accuracy, and client service delivery.
Topics Covered:
* Screens.ai: Pioneering AI for Law
* Paragon Legal’s Approach to AI Adoption
* Generative AI and its role in Rightsourcing
Gain insights from industry leaders and learn how to harness the power of AI to drive innovation and success in your legal practice.
https://paragonlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Paragon-Screens-Webinar-Promo-Image6.17.24.png6281200competenow/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paragon-logo.svgcompetenow2024-07-19 13:51:022025-05-14 14:44:11The Future of Law: Interim Support, Rightsourcing, and AI in Legal Practice
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Onsite or Remote: What Makes the Most Sense For Your Business?
/in Articles/by competenowFive years ago, remote hiring was a niche practice that often involved professionals in the creative and marketing fields. This changed when entire industries were required to go remote almost literally overnight. People at jobs where in-person work was considered necessary discovered ways to remain productive and efficient while working remotely. It was a crash-course in how to manage a workforce that was not all in the same place.
This paradigm shift remained, to some extent, even after lockdowns were over and many workers returned to the office. The legal field saw some of its biggest players allow employees to remain remote. Although many firms and legal departments moved back to onsite work for most of their employees, the idea of remote work is no longer as foreign as it was in 2019.
There are definite bonuses to hiring remotely, but sometimes, you need an employee onsite. How can you weigh these needs to determine the best choice for you and your department?
The Benefits of Hiring Remote Lawyers
Remote hiring offers distinct advantages, including:
The Benefits of Onsite Legal Teams
There can be benefits to bringing lawyers onsite, as well. They include:
Paragon Legal has nearly 20 years of experience answering the question of remote or onsite hiring. Here’s the general framework we use to inform our decisions.
Step 1: Evaluate Your True Onsite Needs
The first step is to consider the work that your new hire will be performing. Are there tasks that must be done in the office? Meetings that the legal department is expected to attend? Databases that can only be accessed onsite?
Consider, as well, security and privacy issues. It’s easier to control data security when employees are on-site and using standardized equipment and programs. However, with a robust remote data security protocol, many of these issues can be addressed when it comes to offsite work.
Collaboration is another aspect to consider. While technology makes it possible for remote employees to participate in meetings, it can also introduce a feeling of distance between current staff and your new hire. Does your team engage in a lot of brainstorming sessions where everyone yells out their thoughts and builds on what others have said? You might lean towards hiring someone in person. But if your team communicates via Slack even when they’re all in the same room, a remote hire could be a better fit.
Step 2: Explore Remote Work Options
Even if you suspect you need someone onsite, it can be useful to consider how many of your needs could be met with a remote or hybrid employee. The potential cost savings and access to a wider talent pool can make a remote or partially remote position the right decision. It’s worth putting some thought into what parts of your needed position don’t have to be done onsite.
Perform a workload audit to determine where current staff is spending time. Could some of those tasks be assigned to a remote worker, leaving current onsite staff available for work that must be done in the office?
Consider creating a formal communication policy that will be followed both by onsite employees and remote workers. Invest in collaboration tools that will allow teams to feel connected, even if they’re physically distant. The rewards of building a cohesive team identity will be worth it.
Step 3: If Hiring Remotely, Navigate Leadership Mandates and Build a Case for Flexibility
Sometimes, the largest roadblocks to creative staffing options come from higher up. If leadership doesn’t understand the advantages or benefits of hiring remote staff, it can be a hard sell. New ways of hiring involve new processes. Human Resources might push back against what they see as insurmountable issues with reconciling current policies with remote work.
Arm yourself with appropriate data before you make your case. Show what an average hiring timeline looks like, including projections on how long it might take to find a suitable employee within your geographical area. Could remote hiring speed up that process by opening up the talent pool?
Hiring a contractor to test out remote work can be a low-risk way to evaluate whether it can work for you and your department. Contractors often work without long-term contracts or commitments, giving you the chance to evaluate and refine how remote work might look in your department.
Step 4: Avoid the Pressure to Compromise
Staffing needs can lead to urgency, and that can cause you to hire someone who isn’t the best fit for your company. When there’s work that needs to be done now, sometimes it’s easier to focus on “right now” than it is to focus on “right.”
This can be a major mistake. Employees who aren’t good fits for your company are not likely to make your life easier. Instead, you might be faced with new problems (including having to hire for the position again when the employee leaves for a job for which they’re better suited).
Whether you’re hiring onsite or remote, take the time to find someone who will fit in with your team. Patience in the hiring process will be a sound investment when you find the perfect candidate for you.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the decision to hire remote or onsite lawyers depends on the specific needs and values of the legal department.
For teams seeking flexibility, access to a broader talent pool, and cost savings, remote work may be the better option.
On the other hand, for those prioritizing collaboration, security, and maintaining strong interpersonal relationships, on-site work may be the optimal choice.
In some cases, a hybrid model, combining the best of both worlds, could offer the perfect solution. Legal leaders must weigh these factors carefully and consider what will align best with their long-term goals and the unique demands of their team.
Does remote hiring sound like a good fit for your company? We’re here to help. Reach out to Paragon Legal to see how we can create a custom staffing solution for you.
In Celebration: National Disability Employment Awareness Month
/in In Celebration/by competenowAt Paragon Legal, we are proud to celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month this October! We believe in fostering inclusive workplaces that empower everyone to succeed. To help raise awareness and support your own efforts, we’ve curated a list of valuable resources. Together, we can continue to create opportunities that make a difference.
Check out these helpful links:
The Paragon Career Connect Program: A Partnership to Foster Inclusivity
/in Career Connect, Articles diversity, career connect, inclusivity/by competenowCorporate legal departments don’t have the best reputation for diversity. Some might argue that the makeup of these departments reflects who is graduating from law school, but that’s not the case. Today’s law students are an incredibly diverse group that brings a wealth of unique experiences to the legal field.
Paragon Legal recognizes and celebrates this diversity. That’s why we created the Paragon Legal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Career Connect program.
The program began in 2022 as a partnership between Paragon Legal, Affirm, Dropbox, and UC Hastings College of the Law (now University of California College of the Law, San Francisco). It aims to increase the talent and diversity of in-house legal teams by offering recent law school graduates an in-house position with a Bay Area tech company.
The program expanded nationwide in its second year, including the Santa Clara University School of Law, William & Mary Law School, and additional leading industry partners.
How does the Career Connect program work?
The Paragon Career Connect program matches law school graduates with in-house legal departments to support their entry into the workplace while further developing their legal skills and gaining industry experience. Here are the basics:
The program has benefits for law schools, law graduates,and legal departments.
Legal graduates receive ongoing training and experience in how an in-house legal department works. In addition, they have the opportunity to build connections within the legal industry.
Law schools are able to offer a specialized experience for students that they might not otherwise have available. If potential students are interested in working in-house, this can help law schools with recruiting efforts.
Companies have the opportunity to work with new law school graduates and help shape their understanding of what it means to work in-house. In addition, the Career Connect program will give in-house departments access to students who are both promising and diverse. If they’re looking to expand their department, these hand-picked candidates are an attractive hiring pool.
Success stories from participating law schools
Here’s how the Paragon Career Connect program is making a difference for our participants.
University of California College of Law, San Francisco
Born in Iran, Famy Chavosh and her family moved to California when she was young. After graduating from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law), Famy was a member of the inaugural class of the Paragon Career Connect program. Her undergraduate degree in business gave her an entrepreneurial mindset. She set her sights on an in-house position while she was still in law school, but she found that her education focused more on traditional career paths like private practice.
Famy immediately saw the opportunity offered by the Career Connect program. She applied, thinking “it was too good to be true.” After her acceptance to what she called a “rare opportunity,” Famy realized that the program delivered on its promises. She was placed at financial tech company Affirm, and her education continued.
Famy appreciated the opportunity to get hands-on experience in a legal department and enjoyed the chance to work on a team that was cross-functional. “There is no such thing as being “specialized” and sticking to that specialty when working in-house,” she said. Everyone in Legal touches every aspect of the legal review process.”
When asked whether this is an opportunity other law school graduates should pursue, Famy said, “I would definitely recommend this route to graduating 3Ls who are looking to enter straight into the in-house realm. The support Paragon offered throughout the process helped me feel prepared to pursue my goals.”
Fellow UC Law SF graduate Maryam Quasto was another member of the inaugural class of the Career Connect program. She was drawn to the program’s goal of diversity and inclusion, saying, “Career Connect’s focus on diversity matters to me. As an Iraqi immigrant and first-generation lawyer in the United States, it is important to me to see more representation in the legal field. I believe that my background and culture provide me with a distinctive legal perspective.”
Maryam was matched with tech company Dropbox, where she worked with senior attorneys on tasks like data privacy negotiations. “One of the most surprising aspects of starting my career in-house has been the ability to really take a hands-on approach to learning the profession. Early on, I was assigned my own workload and clients to manage, and that in and of itself created a unique opportunity to practice the law,” she said.
Dropbox was clearly impressed with Maryam: at the end of the program, they offered her a full-time job in their legal department. When asked what advice she had for law school students, Maryam said, “I advise any law student curious about corporate law and in-house life to be open-minded and willing to learn!”
Santa Clara University School of Law
In its second year, the Paragon Career Connect Program expanded to more law schools. For Debbie Snyder, Assistant Dean of Career Management at Santa Clara University School of Law, working with Paragon “made sense.” She points to the diversity of SCUSL as one reason this collaboration works so well. “Your first legal career opportunity lays the foundation for your professional journey, shapes your growth as a legal professional, and sets the trajectory for your future success. It has the power to shape the impact you can make in the world, and we are thrilled to bring this opportunity to students alongside Paragon,” Ms. Snyder said.
How can my law school participate in Career Connect?
Law school graduates are a diverse bunch. One of the best ways to ensure this diversity is integrated into the legal field in general is by supporting these graduates in making connections with in-house legal departments.
If your law school has a commitment to diversity and inclusion, we’d love to talk with you about a partnership with Paragon Legal’s Career Connect program. We are committed to expanding this program so other law school graduates can benefit. If you think this program may be a good fit for your school, please contact our team at Daphne@paragonlegal.com. We’re here to answer your questions and provide any additional information you might need.
Interim Support, Rightsourcing, and AI in Legal Practice
/in Articles rightsourcing, artificial intelligence, legal AI/by Kristen PoorTakeaways
It’s no secret that in-house legal teams are being asked to do more with less. This can be particularly noticeable in areas where legal teams have historically relied on outside counsel. Since work demands tend to ebb and flow, it’s typically not cost-effective to make a new hire, but, as budgets fall, outside counsel may become too costly.
The solution is interim support. If you can hire a skilled interim employee just for those times when you need an extra hand, you reduce the cost while still receiving the support you need. Now imagine that interim employee has the ability to do more in less time, making them substantially more efficient.
All of this is possible through the combination of rightsourcing and advanced technological tools that harness the power of AI.
What is Rightsourcing?
Paragon Legal President and COO Jessica Markowitz defines rightsourcing as “the right work getting done at the right time by the right people using the right technology.” Let’s break that down.
The right work: Outsourcing work becomes less attractive if extensive training is required to get any interim employees up to speed. You need trained and qualified legal professionals who are ready to hit the ground running and can help with the work you need done from day 1.
The right time: Although there is no such thing as an average day on an in-house legal team, some times are reliably busier than others. You’re going to need more attorneys available when working on meeting a compliance deadline or completing a quarter than you will during down times. No amount of shifting work will completely eliminate this feast-and-famine cycle of work. You’re going to need help.
The right people: The wrong person can create far more work than they alleviate. You need someone who can fit into your existing system and work with current staff. Unfortunately, these people aren’t always easy to find when you need them.
The right technology: Much like the right people, technology can either simplify things or complicate them. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s hard to know which technology will be a net benefit without going through a long period of evaluation, implementation, and onboarding. This is particularly true when it comes to new technology like generative AI (GAI).
Considerations When Using AI in Legal
The horror stories are well-known at this point: attorneys who have cited fictional caselaw or otherwise been misled by GAI, often with catastrophic results from formal sanctions to having pleadings struck. Part of this is a misunderstanding of GAI’s purpose and capabilities: it is not necessarily intended to be a research reference, and, if it cannot find the information it’s looking for, it can sometimes ‘hallucinate,’ or create something out of nothing. To say that this is a problem in legal work is an understatement.
However, AI also offers many benefits to lawyers, law firms, and legal departments. AI is much better at comparing internal consistency in a document than a human, for example. It can also evaluate large amounts of data very quickly. If used correctly, AI has the ability to make legal work much faster and more efficient.
There are several products on the market intended to make AI more efficient, accurate, and useful for the legal field. These products should be evaluated very carefully to ensure that they respect data privacy and security, but once due diligence is performed, these programs have the potential to revolutionize the legal field.
Rightsourcing and AI
Efficiency looks much different for legal services that rely on billable hours than it does for in-house teams. In fact, it may seem counterproductive for some lawyers to improve efficiency: the billable hour system rewards thorough contemplation over speed. And there is a case to be made for thorough contemplation. However, not every legal matter requires the original thinking that you’re paying for when you use a big law firm for outside counsel.
Particularly when you’re hiring for day-to-day tasks, task efficiency can help stretch your outsourcing budget even further. If an attorney is completing routine tasks, a thoroughly-evaluated AI solution that is designed for use in the legal field can compound the amount of work that can be done in an hour.
Screens.ai
Screens.ai is a perfect example of this fusion of technology and human knowledge. It’s an AI-powered solution to assist with contract review and redlining. Contracts are put through screens, which are a set of standards that need to be met in a particular type of contract or transaction. Users can use pre-made screens that were created by legal experts or make their own customized screens.
This solution can dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes to review and redline a contract. However, the time savings is negated if it’s difficult to audit what the AI did and why it did it. Screens.ai resolves this issue by offering users the opportunity to accept, modify, or reject suggestions, as well as offering the ability to easily audit changes made.
Use of this software for contract review can dramatically speed up the process by flagging areas that would benefit from the attorney’s attention for manual review. In addition, Screens.ai has the benefit of quickly standardizing language throughout the contract.
Benefits of Using AI with Interim Support
Does it really save time if you need to train interim support on how to use this new technology? Obviously, it’s ideal if the interim talent is already trained on these new tools.
That’s why legal professionals at Paragon Legal are provided with a complimentary Paragon Contract AI Bundle that utilizes the power of Screens.ai. When you hire one of our team members, you’re not only getting an amazing, qualified attorney — you’re getting one who is equipped with the tools to make them even more efficient.
This can also be a cost-effective way to try new technology or see how it might be integrated into your current department. Working with an interim attorney who is equipped and trained in the newest AI technology can help you decide whether the technology is worth investing time and energy into.
Looking to the Future of In-House Legal
Things are changing for in-house legal teams, and it doesn’t seem that things will be calming down anytime soon. Legal departments will continue to be asked to improve efficiency without sacrificing outcomes. The current way that many departments utilize outside counsel may no longer be feasible.
However, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By embracing both qualified flex talent and technology tools, including AI, legal teams can respond to these challenges with imagination and agility.
If you’re considering working with interim legal counsel, we’d love to speak with you about your use case. Get in touch with us to discuss how we can help rightsource your legal team with the people and tools you need to succeed.
Paragon Legal Celebrates Exclusive Selection by AdvanceLaw for Innovative Legal Marketplace
/in News advancelaw, partnership, mitratech, alternative legal service provider, alsp/by competenowParagon Legal, a woman-founded and women-led enterprise providing high-quality flexible legal talent to in-house legal teams, is thrilled to announce its selection by Mitratech’s AdvanceLaw to join its innovative data-driven outside counsel marketplace. This partnership signifies Paragon Legal’s continued commitment to delivering exceptional legal services and showcases its unique value proposition in the Alternative Legal Service Provider (ALSP) market.
Extensive Vetting Process and Unique Differentiators
Paragon Legal was chosen after a rigorous vetting process, which included comprehensive rounds of evaluations, client reference checks, and consultations with industry leaders and AdvanceLaw members. This extensive vetting highlighted Paragon Legal’s superior client service, commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), and its innovative approach to flexible legal talent to support short and medium-term in-house team needs, including workload management, interim and gap support, project-based support, temp-to-perm, and specialized expertise.
Why AdvanceLaw Chose Paragon Legal
Impact and Commitment
About Paragon Legal
Paragon Legal provides legal departments at leading corporations with high quality, flexible legal talent to help them meet their changing workload demands. At the same time, we offer talented attorneys and other legal professionals a way to practice law outside the traditional career path, empowering them to achieve both their professional and personal goals. For more information about Paragon Legal and its services, please visit www.paragonlegal.com.
Mitratech AdvanceLaw Expands Legal Marketplace With New Alternative Legal Service Providers Paragon Legal and QuisLex
/in News advancelaw, mitratech, alternative legal service provider, alsp/by competenowMitratech’s data-driven outside counsel marketplace announces its expansion into the alternative legal services market, growing its panel to 12,000+ lawyers across 22 providers.
Austin, TX (August 6, 2024) – In its 14th year, AdvanceLaw’s $100M legal marketplace helps General Counsel (GCs) select outside lawyers based on strong performance for peers, rather than using brand or high rates as a proxy for quality. The company continues its mission to suggest the best-qualified, best-value legal resources in 2024 by adding two alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) to its vetted panel: Paragon Legal and QuisLex.
“We see a growing segment of client needs — secondments being an excellent example — that are a lose/lose-value proposition for large law firms and general counsel, leaving both sides unhappy with the economics,” said Aaron Kotok, Executive Director at Mitratech’s AdvanceLaw.
Paragon Legal, a woman-founded and women-led enterprise, provides U.S.-based flexible staffing to support short and medium-term in-house talent needs created by overflow work, parental leaves, staff turnover, or company growth. Client engagements extend nationwide and across practice areas, including commercial contracting, privacy, employment, product counseling and niche regulatory support. Based in the Bay Area, Paragon has established a strong track record of success for leading clients, including several AdvanceLaw members. Its leadership’s laser focus on achieving stellar client outcomes was a key differentiator in the vetting process, supported by investments to drive efficiency and productivity for clients such as i) training and development support for Paragon’s deployed talent base and ii) providing AI tools and training to deployed talent.
“We are thrilled to begin supporting AdvanceLaw GCs. We work hard to ensure our clients receive top talent and 5-star service, and we are excited for this group of 350 GCs to see how flexible talent can enhance their team’s productivity and budget,” said Trista Engel, CEO, Paragon Legal.
QuisLex, a certified Minority Business Enterprise and AdvanceLaw’s other new ALSP addition, has provided managed legal services to GCs for 20+ years. The company’s ability to create top-quality solutions that pair innovative technologies (including generative AI) with the company’s 1000-strong stable of lawyers and rigorous quality control allows QuisLex to support clients outside the traditional litigation and M&A document review space, designing creative solutions for a growing range of legal and compliance use cases.
“AdvanceLaw’s peer performance evaluation model is an ideal way to introduce new GCs to what ASLPs can deliver, since there is uneven adoption across legal teams and very significant value to be created. We are excited for GCs to begin hearing from their peers about the results they have achieved with our team!” said Sirisha Gummaregula, COO at QuisLex.
Both Paragon and QuisLex were subject to rigorous vetting and client reference checks throughout the selection process. “Many in-house counsel are new to ALSPs and find it hard to navigate between providers. Our vetting surfaced important differentiators we think clients will really value, and we are excited to share those with our GC community,”” said Owen Bevan, AdvanceLaw’s Managing Director.
Paragon Legal and QuisLex’s new capabilities complement captive offerings at several current AdvanceLaw firms. Pinsent Masons’ Vario team provides flexible staffing services in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, UAE, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Africa, in addition to managed services that include outsourced company secretarial support. McCarthy Tetrault’s MT > Align model provides flexible staffing services in Canada, alongside managed services in corporate, litigation, and immigration.
“Having vetted ALSPs be accountable to peer GCs for their performance will give our clients even more confidence to create bold change,” said Katherine Shell, VP of AdvanceLaw’s outside counsel transformation consulting team.
Paragon Legal and QuisLex join AdvanceLaw’s global panel of 20 leading law firms across the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Collectively, AdvanceLaw panel members employ over 12,000 attorneys. To learn more about the AdvanceLaw panel providers please visit our website at https://www.advancelaw.com/firms/. To learn more about becoming an AdvanceLaw member legal department, please get in touch at info@advancelaw.com.
About Mitratech
Mitratech is a proven global technology partner for corporate legal, risk, compliance, and HR professionals seeking to maximize productivity, control expense, and mitigate risk by deepening organizational alignment, increasing visibility, and spurring collaboration across an enterprise. Mitratech serves over 20,000 organizations worldwide, spanning more than 160 countries.
For more info, visit: www.mitratech.com
Centerforce Journeys to Equity Podcast: An Entrepreneurs Journey from Wall Street to Paragon Legal
/in Articles legal talent, legal services, flexible legal talent, entrepreneurs, diversity, DEIB/by competenowTrista Engel, CEO of Paragon Legal, and Jessica Markowitz, President & COO of Paragon Legal, share their journey from the 2008 Wall Street Financial Crisis to raising money to buy Paragon Legal, and now successfully growing the business. Listen to this inspiring journey. What were and how did they overcome the Gender Stereotypes and challenges they faced raising money and pitching VCs? Why did they select Paragon Legal, and how has flex talent changed and encouraged diverse legal talent to not only stay in the profession but use Paragon Legal as a springboard to launch their career?
Buzzsprout: https://shorturl.at/Ue8H9
Apple Podcast: https://shorturl.at/gqksR
Spotify: https://shorturl.at/RNqFS
Excellence in Client Satisfaction: Paragon Legal’s Industry-Leading 79 NPS Rating
/in /by competenowWe take pride in the Paragon Difference: offering strategic partnerships, high-precision matching, and exceptional service.
79 NPS Score
Paragon Legal has maintained industry-leading client and attorney satisfaction ratings. Our NPS soared above 70, setting a new standard in the industry.
86 Percent of respondents gave Paragon a 9 or 10
Our reputation as the “Gold Standard” is backed by our clients’ feedback. According to a recent market survey, clients, former clients, and prospective clients alike praised the quality of our talent and the personalized approach we bring to each engagement.
80 Attorney NPS score
Our attorney NPS has remained consistently above 80, reflecting our unwavering commitment to excellence.
*NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. Respondents were asked to rate their willingness to recommend Paragon on a 0-10 scale with “0” a “not at all likely” and “10” a “highly likely”. 10s and 9s are considered promoters. 7s and 8s are Passives. And below 7 is considered a detractor. NPS is arrived at by subtracting the % of detractors from the % of promoters.
Source: Clearly Rated and Survey Monkey
Alternative Legal Service Providers: What are they and when to use them
/in Articles flexible legal talent, alsp, commercial transactions/by competenowTakeaways
Picture this: Your company has an upcoming product launch, and your in-house attorneys are swamped with tasks to finish by the end of the quarter. They have to establish the business’s IP rights, secure liability insurance, and check the product’s safety, among other responsibilities.
Outside counsel could help ease the workload, but firm attorneys typically require a lot of oversight and work slowly because they’re especially risk-averse. Their high fees also significantly cut into the company’s revenue.
Sound familiar? If you’re a GC or legal operations leader, you’ve likely been in similar situations more times than you care to admit. You’re not alone in feeling frustrated with the traditional law firm model.
Now, imagine another solution—one that could provide the expertise you need when you need it and without breaking the bank.
Looking for a Top Alternative Legal Service Provider?
Discover Paragon: Flexible, top-tier legal talent for your evolving business needs.
Learn More
Enter Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs). In this post, we’ll demystify the term and show you how ALSPs can be a game-changer for your in-house team. We’ll cover:
By the end, you’ll clearly understand how ALSPs can help you boost efficiency, access specialized expertise, and lower costs.
What is an Alternative Legal Service Provider?
ALSP is a broad term that refers to any organization providing legal services that isn’t a law firm.
Outside counsel was the legal industry norm for a long time, but demand for ALSPs grew over the last 10 years as cost reduction became more critical to in-house teams. Reuters’ 2023 report shows that the ALSP market has grown by 145% since 2015, and its 2021 survey found that 71% of corporate law departments rely on ALSPs.
What are the most common types of ALSPs?
1. Flexible legal talent providers
Flexible legal talent providers pair temporary legal professionals with corporate legal departments. Organizations like Paragon exclusively offer interim attorneys with years of in-house experience in specialized practice areas, ensuring they can handle complex tasks that require expertise and judgment. They work closely with in-house counsel—participating in meetings, collaborating on projects, and contributing to strategic decision-making.
Other flexible talent providers focus on staffing for repetitive, high-volume work that doesn’t necessarily require an attorney license. These companies typically provide temporary paralegals and legal secretaries along with attorneys.
2. Legal process outsourcing providers (LPOs)
LPOs handle repetitive tasks that require minimal expertise—such as document review, data entry, and basic contract management.
These providers often rely on overseas talent and automation to minimize costs, and they typically work independently with limited direct collaboration with the client’s legal department. This talent solution is best for teams that need support for repetitive legal work at a low cost and don’t need to work closely with the service provider.
3. The Big Four accounting firms
The Big Four accounting firms (PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte) offer routine legal services that complement their primary accounting work.
These ALSPs attract clients with their multi-purpose offerings. Because their staff includes a variety of business professionals—not just attorneys—these firms can offer diverse service bundles. However, the Big Four was the slowest-growing ALSP segment in Reuters’ 2023 report, making up just $1.5B of the $20B ALSP market.
4 Strategic Benefits of Using an ALSP
1. Scalability and Flexibility
Unlike hiring full-time attorneys, ALSPs let you scale your resources up or down based on your legal needs.
Imagine your legal department only needs 20 weekly hours from an attorney to help with sales negotiations over the next quarter. Instead of bringing on a full-time, permanent employee, you could hire an interim attorney for just that time. You can add or cut hours from your interim attorney based on how your team’s workload changes.
With this scalability, your in-house team can remain nimble when the economy, your business, or your budget unexpectedly shifts.
2. Cost Savings
ALSPs’ flexibility helps in-house teams avoid wasteful spending. Instead of relying on costly full-time attorneys or outside counsel for every task, you can use ALSPs to complete most of your in-house work at a more cost-effective rate (without compromising on quality).
Imagine you’re a part of a small in-house team for a company that’s about to go through a merger. Your full-time attorneys will need to dedicate significant time to this project over the next year, so you use an ALSP like Paragon to backfill the team’s day-to-day legal work.
Here’s a breakdown of how much the ALSP route would save your team over a year based on current rates—roughly $150,000 compared to a full-time hire and $350,000 compared to using outside counsel.
For more cost breakdowns like this one, check out our GC’s Guide to Rightsourcing.
3. High-quality, fully-embedded team members
Flexible legal talent providers, like Paragon, have networks of attorneys with diverse backgrounds in many practice areas. Unlike outside counsel, interim attorneys from these providers work directly with your team at the pace your business needs. You can tap into niche legal expertise that may not be available in-house without resorting to costly law firms or new hires.
Say you need help with a regulatory compliance issue. A flexible legal talent provider can connect you with a seasoned expert in that field, like Paragon’s interim attorney Danny J.
He has over ten years of experience, specializes in compliance, and just spent nine months handling regulatory investigations for a social media tech company.
4. Access to innovative legal tech
Law firms are often slow to learn and adopt new technologies. They’re worried about these tools’ creating security risks, and they can’t bill their clients for learning how to use the latest software.
Meanwhile, ALSPs typically create and/or use innovative legal tech to work more efficiently and precisely than competitors. This software ranges from document management systems to contract lifecycle management tools and AI-powered legal research and analytics platforms.
Paragon, for example, recently formed a partnership with Screens.ai, an artificial intelligence-based contract review software for legal teams. Looking ahead, we expect more in-house teams to use tech platforms as AI tools become better at handling legal workflows.
How In-House Teams are Using ALSPs: 3 Case Studies
To better understand ALSPs’ value, let’s dive into how several companies relied on Paragon as their flexible legal talent provider.
1. Expanding a Medical Device Company’s Legal Team
Before engaging Paragon, a fast-growing medical devices company faced several major legal challenges. Paragon’s interim attorneys were able to resolve each problem promptly.
The client accessed Paragon’s talent at a combined hourly rate of $605, compared to a law firm completing the same work at an estimated $2,000 per hour. Altogether, the switch to interim counsel saved the business over $2.3 million in one year.
2. Conquering Overflow Work for a Software Giant
A Fortune 500 software company faced unpredictable spikes in legal work due to rapid growth, new product launches, and regulatory changes. They needed highly skilled, flexible help to address overflow work in commercial transactions, procurement, antitrust, privacy, and marketing.
Paragon provided the business with experienced interim counsel who handled a variety of tasks, including:
These attorneys seamlessly integrated with the software company, impressing the legal team with their communication skills and ability to work autonomously.
The successful engagement led to an ongoing relationship, with the client engaging Paragon 20 times over the last four years and converting three interim attorneys to full-time employees.
3. Supporting a Cybersecurity Startup During Transitions
Synack, a Series D cybersecurity startup with a two-person legal team, faced a challenge when its corporate counsel went on maternity leave. Steve Soper, Synack’s Vice President of Legal, turned to Paragon for an interim counsel solution.
Paragon matched Synack with David, an experienced lawyer who quickly integrated with the team. David oversaw contract issues, provided legal support on employment and corporate matters, and ensured the team met their internal SLA for contract review response times. He worked twenty hours per week, billing only for the time engaged.
After David’s initial engagement ended, Steve reached out to Paragon to engage him for a second time on short notice. The company’s corporate counsel had just quit her role, so David’s prior experience and knowledge of Synack’s business were invaluable.
Synack eventually hired a new corporate counsel, but Steve noted he wouldn’t be surprised if he re-engages David or another Paragon attorney.
“Given his knowledge of the company, it’s just super-nice, from my perspective, to be able to say, ‘Hey David, can you come back for a couple weeks to look at some contracts?’” said Steve.
Manage your team’s overflow work with ALSPs
Whether you need to expand your team’s capacity, fill a temporary gap, or access niche expertise, ALSPs are worth considering as an alternative to outside counsel or full-time hiring. They help in-house departments reduce costs, work more efficiently, and keep stakeholders happy.
If you’re considering leveraging ALSPs, Paragon Legal can help. We provide legal departments with tailored interim counsel solutions using our extensive network of experienced attorneys.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you rightsource your way to legal department success.
The Future of Law: Interim Support, Rightsourcing, and AI in Legal Practice
/in Webinars ai, legal services, flexible legal talent, ai in law/by competenowAre you an attorney, law firm, or in-house legal team curious about responsibly adopting AI, up-skilling your workforce, and positioning yourself as an innovator in an AI-driven future?
Watch our webinar on-demand to shed light on the path to being at the forefront of generative AI for Law.
Featured Speakers:
Jessica Markowitz, President and COO of Paragon Legal
Otto Hanson, Founder and CEO of TermScout and Screens.ai
Key Takeaways:
Learn how Paragon Legal, a leading legal services provider, is integrating cutting-edge generative AI technology from Screens.ai into their legal workflows and processes. Gain insight from Paragon and Screens.ai’s vision, approach, and real-world use cases demonstrating how this collaboration enhances efficiency, accuracy, and client service delivery.
Topics Covered:
* Screens.ai: Pioneering AI for Law
* Paragon Legal’s Approach to AI Adoption
* Generative AI and its role in Rightsourcing
Gain insights from industry leaders and learn how to harness the power of AI to drive innovation and success in your legal practice.