What is Legal Secondment?
Secondment: What is Secondment in Law Firms?
In the law firm context, secondment arrangements tend to come in two forms: between two law firms or between a law firm and an in-house legal department. These arrangements can be formal or informal, with the latter being less sophisticated and more common than formal arrangements. Typically, a secondment involves an attorney or team of attorneys transferring from one firm or department to another for a finite period of time. The length of the secondment may range from a few weeks to several years, with the in-house model typically having much longer terms. The attorney involved in the secondment will temporarily work within the general counsel’s office or within the client’s legal department. The seconded lawyer receives a salary and benefits, including insurance and pension contributions, from the seconding entity. The host law firm or client reimburses the seconding firm for the seconded employee’s salary and benefits, sometimes with a profit margin included. Because the process for secondment can be long and tedious, most secondment arrangements are negotiated well in advance of establishing the actual relationship. The fundamental reasons law firms and their clients enter into secondments include: Secondment can also be used strategically. For example , a law firm may use secondment to penetrate a new client or industry, entering into an arrangement with a client’s in-house counsel to gain insight into industry trends and to better understand the firm’s busiest clients’ needs and develop emergent practices that the firm may not already have in place. The law firm’s in-house counsel clients also benefit from the arrangement because they are able to stay on the cutting edge of a wide variety of practice areas and benefit from additional hours billed to their clients by their outside counsel. In-house legal departments that implement a program utilizing secondments increase value and decrease costs to their organization by using secondments to procure the services of seasoned, specialized lawyers on somewhat short notice. Contracting with lawyers during peak periods, staff leaves or other periods of uncertainity to help remedy staff shortages minimizes cost and potential lost revenue to the client through lost billable hours. This program allows the client to secure the best representation for its business without paying the high cost of recruiting, hiring, and maintaining a team of full-time, permanent contractors.
Benefits of Secondments for Law Firms
In addition to the benefits that secondment offers to counsel, it benefits the law firm and the clients as well. Even though secondments are temporary, they can have a lasting impact on both the law firm and its clients. This system of loaning out in-house lawyers to law firms provide many benefits to law firms:
- Increased Skill Sets: A law firm’s skill sets are enhanced by the time each lawyer spends on assignment with the seconding organization. When client companies develop new products, expand operations, execute new strategies, enter into global markets, evaluate their business litigation needs, or examine regulatory and compliance issues, they often enlist their law firms to assist them. Embedding lawyers temporarily with their clients to serve as members of the client’s business teams provides the lawyers with critical insights into the client’s business. Those law firms who incorporate seconded attorneys into their relationships enjoy the benefits of broad access to their clients and gain a much deeper understanding of their clients’ businesses, their strategic objectives, and their regulatory and compliance concerns. Better yet, the skills the seconded lawyer gains in this temporary assignment will remain long after the assignment ends and serve as an asset to everyone in the firm.
- Depth and Breadth of Relationships: When secondment is used by a law firm, it builds personal relationships and cultivates trust within the client company as well as between the in-house lawyer and the outside law firm. Those lawyers who are embedded in their client companies and assigned to the appropriate business team will have established deep personal ties to both the in-house business sponsors and counsel and to their outside law firm teams. The relationship benefits from having the same lawyer assigned to the same client year-over-year. Trust is built and the relationship becomes more efficient and effective over time (in terms of both cost and quality). Thus, a lawyer’s personal relationships developed during a secondment carry over to enhance and build those of the law firm. The longer the secondment, the greater the depth and breadth of the firm’s relationships and the greater the benefits that accrue to the law firm and its clients.
- Leverage in Managing Firm Time and Costs: By embedding lawyers with its client company, the firm can manage time spent on-site through the temporary deployment of in-house lawyers, thereby reducing time billed by outside lawyers or firms. Time spent on-site can also provide the law firm additional opportunities to build personal relationships with the company business teams. In addition, assignments involving multiple law firms may allow non-conflicted lawyers at those other firms to work closely with the firm’s seconded lawyer and leverage her experience and expertise.
- Flexibility of Staffing: By temporarily deploying their lawyers to clients, firms can manage staffing challenges by reassigning lawyers as demand dictates. A law firm’s ability to staff specific client projects and engagements is enhanced when those lawyers on staff can be temporarily deployed to client companies without losing their ability to return to work at the firm reassigned to other client matters or categories of work. This flexibility is particularly valuable in high-stakes matters where law firms are often engaged by multiple business groups to advise the company on urgent and sensitive legal matters.
Secondments and Their Benefits for Your Practice
Secondment also provides the law firm with significant benefits in that they have the ability to staff a wider range of matters and the client is ensured of a level of care and attention equal to, or greater than, the best practice by full-time staff. This is also a cost effective way to staff a matter given the significant up front costs of training and development for new lawyers. For example, if a client advises a law firm that they wish to have a team of lawyers with cross border experience and sectoral industry experience for an important matter, the law firm can then second an existing lawyer from an affiliate office with experience from a recent matter for a short period of time. A seconded lawyer will already be familiar with the law firm’s culture, values and processes, and both the law firm and the client benefit from an individual who, with a short adjustment period, will be able to add value from day 1.
Clients also benefit from secondment in that they have access to lawyers who have arrived from a law firm that they know and trust and who work in an integrated manner with their in-house legal departments. In addition, the seconded lawyer who is from a different law firm or potentially a non-lawyer (e.g., economist), can bring a different perspective or level of insight which is valuable to the client. The client will be able to deploy an additional individual with seniority and expertise to staff an important matter on short notice without the need for a lengthy recruitment process.
To this end, it should be noted that clients are increasingly encouraging and/or requesting that firms provide seconded lawyers from their affiliate offices. Some clients will also reimburse the cost to seconded lawyers should their law firms choose not to do so. Clients are particularly interested in having secondees from an affiliate office where their own business is located that may have different or more complex legal issues to those commonly encountered in their local office. This is increasingly true where a client has a global business.
A seconded lawyer will also benefit from the opportunity to work in a different jurisdiction, firm and environment and will gain transferable skills which will be recognised by their law or business school as part of a clinical training element which many now offer to their students. Some law firms will offer secondees an accelerated career path, placement in smaller, low cost offices, relocation to larger markets, full time employment or a year "out of the ranks" with their old firm. With many companies and firms actively encouraging their employees to get involved in pro bono and international corporate social responsibility, there may also be opportunities to contribute to local charities and community projects or work in-house with a client on such projects.
The Effects of Secondments on the Client Relationship
Client relationships are at the heart of a law firm’s business, and understanding what makes them more productive is central to any firm seeking to make the most out of its practice. Secondment, defined as when a fee-earning lawyer goes to work as a member of the client staff for the period of time agreed with the client (from a few weeks to a number of months), is one way in which closer ties and a better understanding of client needs is brought into the mix. It is also something that is attractive to the lawyer, giving them the opportunity to see things from a different perspective.
There are three clear benefits of secondment:
One – Stronger relationships with clients In the firm-client relationship it can be all too easy for firms to be seen as offering a generic, one-size-fits-all-resources approach without delivering the close working experience that corporations appreciate. A secondment is a great way to break this model. It provides the legal team (and the client) with the opportunity to really focus on the specifics of the business need and devise a solution that works for both parties.
Two – Understanding the nuances of a client’s business Legal clients are increasingly cautious about keeping personal details away from ‘untrusted’ lawyers so the secondment approach is a great way to build-up that confidence in your understanding of the business and its sensitivities . At the same time business is becoming more complex. A secondment provides a real insight into the way a business runs, its objectives and even its politics. This provides the legal team with real insight and thus an ability to focus in on the immediate issues at hand.
Three – Better delivery of services because of the strengthened relationship with the client At the heart of every law firm’s pitch to a prospective client is the promise that its lawyers will help the client to achieve their goals. It’s no different when you’re pitching a secondment. Say you are a litigation lawyer, a niche area in which some firms continue to display a transactional versus advisory role (if we are to accept this categorisation), immersing yourself in your client’s world for an extended period of time should be transformative. A relevant lawyer working closely with the client for the duration of the secondment may be able to carry out a much wider range of work. That in turn may allow them to empower a client or work on a more strategic basis.
Secondment also allows fare more integrated service offerings than legal advice alone. By truly understanding the client, its culture and its people, a legal resourcing strategy can be built that best suits the client and the cost implications for them.
Challenges in Managing Secondments
However, not all secondments run smoothly. Law firms and their clients also experience challenges when there is a change in their business. Chief Malpractice Officer David Kwiatkowski cites some of these challenges in his article "The Facts About Secondment" which includes:
Adaptation. Employers should provide any necessary information and a tour of the premises to help seconded employees get familiar with the environment, routines and people working there.
Resistance to delegation. People often feel uncomfortable delegating tasks to seconded employees, as they don’t trust them enough or haven’t built good relationships with them. Similarly, a seconded employee might be reluctant to fully delegate the job to a trainee if they feel they will not perform their task to a required standard.
Conflict. Although it is natural for conflict to arise during the course of business, care should be taken when dealing with a seconded employee who might feel isolated or unfairly treated because of their temporary position.
Lack of communication. Good communication is essential to teamwork and the overall success of business operations. However, the temporary nature of secondments can sometimes result in reduced communication established with the seconded employee due to the reliance of full time employees on familiar faces. This could lead to confusion and delays in the completion of tasks.
Bring your work home with you. Considering the flexibility that the internet can bring, discussing highly private company related issues with a seconded employee in a coffee shop terrace or at lunch could lead to a data leak.
How to Successfully Approach Secondment
There are strategies that can ensure both the law firm and the secondee have a positive experience. Successful secondments require:
• Setting clear objectives and expectations at the outset;
• Developing an implementation plan that tracks the objectives, performance and feedback;
• Establishing a mechanism for creating formal and informal conduits for communication and connection to the firm;
• Establishing a process to select the secondment candidate; and
• Providing a mutually agreed-upon budget and expense claim system.
"A senior lawyer practicing in Australia who had worked in a Magic Circle firm in London recently told me that secondments can be an opportunity for an up-and-coming lawyer to branch out and experience Japan, Hong Kong, Europe or the US. Secondments give you a chance to choose to live abroad or in another city as well as have a fabulous personal and professional experience. The exposure a lawyer has through a foreign or local secondment adds value to a firm."
Many firms employ a secondment management service with experienced secondment managers who spend their time matching secondees with clients on a regular basis, which allows their law firm clients to transact between secondments . Secondment managers have particular skills in understanding client needs and scanning the law firm talent pool. This can save a firm significant time, effort and money when planning their secondment strategy.
The successful implementation of secondments requires a finely tuned balance between addressing firm, client and secondee requirements. A good secondment program helps firms improve their productivity and client service. It also allows for better bilaterals among the firm’s offices and helps firms to create home-grown lawyers who have integrated and harmonized experience. It will help the firm to build better relationships leading to greater financial results.
Clients can benefit from secondments by ensuring consistent service, sharing the risk of trial and error of projects and freeing client personnel for other activities. Secondees can have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in high-profile and potentially life-changing projects.
"Law firm clients used to tell us that their biggest concern when sending secondees abroad is that the secondees receive adequate integration into the law firm. Once we created our secondment management service, client concerns about secondee integration were eliminated because of their satisfaction with abilities to integrate and their strong performance."