Budget Strategies for Securing the Legal Talent You Need

Budget Strategies for Securing the Legal Talent You Need in 2025

As we approach 2025, legal department leaders are navigating a complex landscape of increasing regulatory demands, economic uncertainty, and evolving business objectives. This makes a well-considered approach to talent planning increasingly valuable. Budget planning offers an opportunity not just to secure headcount, but to ensure your legal team has the right mix of skills and expertise to meet both expected demands and unforeseen challenges in the year ahead.

To help you navigate these complexities and build a stronger case during budget discussions, here are six strategies for securing the legal talent your department needs in 2025.

1. Align Your Additional Legal Staffing Request with Business Priorities

One of the most effective ways to justify additional staffing is to tie your request directly to your organization’s business goals. Clearly and consistently position the legal department as a strategic business enabler, not just a cost center. Whether it’s supporting a major corporate transaction, navigating regulatory changes, or managing increased litigation, clearly articulate how your legal team’s work is essential to achieving key business objectives.

Collaborate with your C-suite partners to understand their priorities for 2025 and help them understand the strategic value your legal team contributes to those goals and why additional staffing is necessary. By linking your request to defined business outcomes, you’ll increase the likelihood that leadership will advocate for your needs.

2. Use Data to Support Your Case

After aligning your staffing needs with business priorities, back up your case with hard data and specific examples of your legal department’s strategic contributions. For instance:

• Workload Metrics: Share how your team’s workload has increased over time, such as the number of requests received and resolved, contracts reviewed, litigation managed, or compliance issues addressed.
• Highlight Successes: Provide specific examples of how your team added strategic value, such as helping avoid major risks, saving the company money, or improving operational efficiency through cross-functional collaboration and advice.
• Benchmarking: Compare your department’s staffing levels to similar organizations in your industry. If you can show that your legal team is handling the same workload with fewer resources, it strengthens your case for more staff.

3. Consider Contract Attorneys for Cost-Effective Solutions

Even with solid data, permanent hires may not always be an option. If that’s the case, consider a flexible talent solution where your core legal team is supplemented by interim or project-specific attorneys on demand.

This allows you to scale your team as needed while keeping costs under control and ensuring that critical projects remain on track. Demonstrating the cost savings and flexibility of using contract talent can be a persuasive alternative to permanent hires – particularly since contract work is often attributed to a different budget line than full-time hires, making it easier to manage overall headcount expenses.

4. Demonstrate the Cost of Doing Nothing

After building your case with data and aligning your staffing needs with business priorities, it’s equally important to address the potential consequences of under-resourcing. If you’re asking for budget approval to grow your team—whether through permanent hires or flexible talent solutions—you should also outline the risks of not securing those resources.

Under-resourcing can lead to missed opportunities, increased risks, and higher costs down the line. For instance, insufficient staffing could delay revenue-generating projects. Additionally, consider the toll that an overburdened team can take on employee well-being. As Latitude EVP and Partner Candice Reed recently discussed in the Leveraging Latitude podcast, losing top talent because they are burned out, overworked, or overstressed can be a costly blow to any legal department.

Burnout not only impacts team morale but also has tangible financial consequences. The cost of replacing experienced legal professionals—both in terms of recruiting new talent and the loss of institutional knowledge—can be significant.

Gallup has reported that replacing an employee can cost anywhere from 50% to 200% of their annual salary – and that is thought to be a conservative estimate. Factors like recruiting costs, onboarding and training expenses, and lost productivity during the vacancy and ramp-up period all affect the replacement costs.

By investing in the right talent at the right time, you can mitigate these risks and ensure your team remains both productive and engaged.

5. Enhance Your Current Team’s Capabilities

In some cases, the solution to meeting increased demand lies in developing your core team’s skills rather than hiring additional attorneys. Allocate part of your budget for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and professional development. This could include targeted CLE courses, mentorship programs pairing junior and senior attorneys, rotational assignments to broaden expertise, or attendance at industry conferences and seminars.

By investing in talent development, you expand your department’s capabilities and maximize your existing resources. A balanced plan that includes both moderate staffing increases and professional development initiatives demonstrates that you’re thinking strategically about the future while empowering your current team to grow and adapt.

6. Plan for Different Scenarios

No matter what strategies you choose, planning for various budget scenarios ensures you’re prepared for any outcome. Be prepared with different staffing models based on various budget outcomes. Develop best-case, moderate-case, and worst-case scenario plans to show how your department will operate under different levels of staffing.

For instance, if full-time headcount increases aren’t approved, have a plan in place to utilize flexible legal talent to address those needs. This demonstrates that you’re adaptable and prepared to deliver results for the business’ needs no matter the circumstances.

The Right Talent Mix for 2025

Securing the right legal talent for 2025 requires a careful balance between aligning with your company’s financial goals and meeting the operational demands of your department. By tying your talent requests to business objectives, supporting your case with data, and planning for various staffing scenarios, you can strengthen your position during budget discussions and increase the likelihood of getting the resources you need.

As you finalize your budget plans for 2025, remember that having a flexible and strategic approach to talent planning is an asset. Whether the best solution for your team means hiring full-time staff, leveraging flexible legal talent, upskilling your existing team, or a combination of the three, ensuring you have the right mix of talent will position your department for success.

At Latitude, we understand the complexities of finding the right legal professionals for your team. We specialize in providing highly experienced attorneys to help organizations achieve their business goals. Whether you need flexible legal talent now or in the future, we can help you find qualified and experienced attorneys tailored to your specific needs and corporate culture.