Flexible Litigation Attorneys and Law Firm Staffing Strategies

Flexible Litigation Attorneys and Law Firm Staffing Strategies

By: Andrew Cary. Andrew is a Partner at Latitude and founder of the company’s San Francisco Bay Area office. A former Partner at Am Law 100 firm Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, he has more than 20 years of experience advising and representing businesses in complex litigation matters, including product liability and commercial disputes.

At the start of each year, I often find myself in deeper conversations with litigators and firm leaders—conversations focused on staffing strategy, practice sustainability, and how best to prepare for the year ahead. These discussions tend to move quickly beyond any single opening or immediate need and instead center on how practices are structured overall, how predictable workloads truly are, and whether existing staffing approaches provide enough flexibility to respond to change.

For litigators, those conversations often focus on sustainability: workload expectations, flexibility around how work gets done, and whether there is room to shape a practice that evolves over time. For firms, the questions are more often about capacity and timing—how to remain responsive when cases accelerate, settle, or overlap in ways that are difficult to forecast. From my vantage point, both sides are increasingly recognizing that a traditional staffing model does not always align with the realities of modern litigation.

What has changed is the range of resources firms now consider as part of a broader talent strategy. In addition to traditional hiring, many firms are incorporating flexible legal talent, specifically interim litigation attorneys, as a complementary resourcing option—one that can help manage uncertainty while also giving experienced litigators more choice in how and when they engage in substantive work.

Evaluating Fit Before Making Long-Term Decisions

One benefit I consistently see with interim litigation attorneys is that they allow firms and attorneys to work together in a lower-risk, highly practical way before making long-term decisions.

From the firm’s perspective, engaging an experienced interim litigator on a flexible basis can provide meaningful support during periods of increased demand—such as expedited trial schedules, discovery-intensive phases, or overlapping matters—without requiring an immediate permanent hire. For litigators, these roles offer a clear view into how a firm actually operates: the people, the workflow, expectations around responsiveness, and the nature of the work itself.

I often think of this as a “toe-in-the-water” approach. It allows both sides to evaluate fit in real time and under real conditions. When expectations are aligned, that often leads to stronger working relationships and, in some cases, longer-term engagements that develop naturally rather than under pressure.

How Firms Are Engaging Flexible Litigation Attorneys

Across firms of all sizes—Am Law 100 firms, regional practices, boutiques, and solos—the ways interim/contract litigators are utilized tend to be fairly consistent. This mirrors what we see more broadly in how firms are approaching flexible talent for law firms as part of their overall staffing mix. Litigation demands do not change dramatically based on firm size, and neither do the points where teams need additional support.

In most cases, firms are not looking to offload entire matters, but to add experienced capacity at critical points in the lifecycle of a case. One example of this approach in action involved an Am Law 100 firm navigating a significant surge in litigation work and bringing in experienced interim litigators to support trial preparation and case work across multiple practice groups.

From what I’ve seen across firms we work with, interim litigation attorneys, engaged on a flexible basis, are most often brought in to assist with:

• Drafting and responding to written discovery
• Motion practice, including legal research and briefing
• Reviewing case materials and preparing case reports to clients
• Participation in meet-and-confer work related to discovery disputes
• Depositions and deposition preparation
• Trial preparation, including motion support as well as handling deposition designations

In many instances, attorneys move from one matter to another within the same firm as needs evolve. The work is substantive and high-level, and engagements frequently extend beyond a single discrete project, depending on the firm’s pipeline and the attorney’s availability.

What Flexibility Looks Like in Practice

Interim litigation roles are often discussed in terms of weekly hours, but that framing only captures part of its appeal.

For firms, this flexibility can translate into more durable staffing decisions, particularly when demand fluctuates in ways that are difficult to model in advance.

For many litigators, the ability to work 20–30 hours a week—or to scale commitments up or down depending on the phase of a matter—can make a long-term litigation practice more sustainable. From a firm perspective, this can open access to highly experienced attorneys who may not be available under a traditional full-time model.

Just as important, though, is longer-term flexibility. Many litigators value knowing they can step away when needed—whether for personal reasons, outside interests, or a professional reset—without closing the door on future opportunities. In practice, that autonomy often results in attorneys who are focused, engaged, and thoughtful about the work they take on.

For firms, this approach can support retention, alignment, and continuity, particularly when flexible roles are integrated intentionally alongside other staffing resources.

Practical Considerations

As with any staffing approach, successful flexible engagements tend to share a few common characteristics.

On the talent side, they work really well for experienced litigators who are confident in their core skills and comfortable integrating into new teams. These are attorneys who can handle traditional case workup projects, including drafting and responding to written discovery, preparing deposition outlines, complex research assignments and handling motion and brief writing assignments with limited ramp-up—while still collaborating closely with supervising partners.

On the firm side, success often comes down to being clear about scope, timelines, and expectations, and treating interim litigation attorneys as valued members of the litigation team.

Looking Ahead

As we look ahead to 2026, interest in interim litigation attorney models—particularly in California—continues to grow. Litigation remains inherently unpredictable, and firms are balancing the need to stay responsive with the realities of long-term sustainability. In response, many firms are exploring more innovative approaches to flexible legal talent alongside traditional staffing models.

The firms that seem to navigate this environment most effectively are not necessarily those with every scenario planned in advance. Rather, they are the ones that understand their available resources, maintain trusted relationships, and remain open to staffing models that reflect how litigation actually unfolds.

For litigators, flexible work represents one way—among several—to continue doing sophisticated, meaningful litigation while maintaining greater control over pace and long-term direction.

In today’s legal environment, the use of interim litigation attorneys is no longer novel or experimental. It has become a practical, well-understood component of how many firms and litigators are thinking about staffing in a changing market.