In law firm business development, a common challenge is crafting compelling, competitive bids without straining existing resources or budgets. Imagine your firm is poised to bid for a lucrative project, but you don’t have the necessary expertise on your current team to meet the client’s requirements. You could hire a full-time team member, but since the work isn’t guaranteed, you may potentially be left with unnecessary overhead. If your firm doesn’t have ongoing demand for that expertise, you’re faced with reshuffling responsibilities to accommodate the new hire in your existing workload.
Rather than scrambling to find a solution that could stretch your team thin and inflate your budget, consider a strategic alternative – bringing in experienced flexible legal talent. This strategy allows firms to pursue new opportunities confidently, without the long-term commitments associated with permanent hires.
The Strategic Alternative: Flexible Legal Talent
Leveraging flexible legal talent, such as interim attorneys, allows you to optimize costs and enhance your firm’s agility, so you can build a compelling, competitive advantage in new business bids. This approach provides your firm with:
- Specialized Expertise on Demand: Interim attorneys bring targeted skills precisely when you need them.
- A Cost-Effective Solution: Avoid long-term financial commitments while accessing high-level expertise.
- A Competitive Edge: Present a highly qualified team tailored to the client’s specific needs.
Case Study: Overcoming Expertise Gap to Win a Major Bid
A recent example illustrates the power of this strategy. A large corporate law firm aimed to win a bid to oversee a significant piece of business that required a niche regulatory attorney dedicated to the project. The client required the firm to identify this attorney as part of their bid. The firm did not have this expertise on staff and didn’t need a full-time employee in this area unless they secured the bid.
By engaging one of Latitude’s attorneys on a temporary basis, the firm successfully:
- Proposed a complete and experienced team aligned to the client’s needs.
- Won the bid with a compelling proposal.
- Continued the attorney’s engagement for several months, eventually hiring them as a permanent member of their team.
This approach ensured the firm could present a strong proposal without risking long-term commitments. Had the firm not won the work, they could have concluded the attorney’s engagement at the end of the bid process with no further obligation.
Breaking Down the Benefits
1. Enhanced Firm Agility in Responding to New Opportunities
One of the key benefits of leveraging flexible legal talent is the enhanced agility to rapidly adjust team sizes and compositions dynamically. This allows firms to:
- Pursue new business opportunities without diverting existing team members from ongoing client work.
- Respond promptly to RFPs with faster assembly of new team members (when needed).
- Present strong, comprehensive bids by showcasing a team with the precise skills and experience to meet the regulatory and technical requirements of the opportunity without permanent hires.
- Streamline operations and reduce overhead costs by scaling the team up or down as needed.
2. Cost-Effective Solution
Hiring full-time staff for potential new business can be financially prohibitive, especially for small to mid-size firms. Interim attorneys provide a cost-effective solution by allowing firms to:
- Access high-level expertise without long-term financial commitment.
- Conclude engagements at the end of the bid process if work isn’t secured.
- Pivot quickly and efficiently without incurring unnecessary costs or disruptions.
3. Experienced Legal Talent for When Quality Matters
Contrary to traditional perceptions, flexible legal talent represents a highly skilled and experienced segment of the legal workforce. Latitude Attorneys, for example, consistently demonstrate sophisticated credentials and high level of experience. We place attorneys with clients who are top graduates from prestigious law schools and have experience working at Am Law 20 law firms or Fortune Global 100 companies.
For these accomplished professionals, flexibility takes various forms. It could be the freedom to choose engagements, preferring part-time or remote work, or even working trial hours for six months and then taking a few months off between engagements to relax.
Firms of all sizes now utilize interim attorneys across the full range of practice and sub-practice areas. Considering flexible legal talent to round out your bid enables firms to:
- Maintain superior service quality while optimizing the legal team to meet fluctuating demands and specialized needs.
- Access a broad range of potential candidates who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience gained from working across multiple prestigious law firms, handling complex cases, and serving in corporate legal departments.
- Quickly secure talent with the best fit for their team and client needs, especially when timing is a critical factor in the bidding process.
4. Building a Competitive Advantage
Clients seek firms that not only understand their needs but can also provide specialized, top-tier service. Incorporating flexible legal talent into your bidding strategy allows you to:
- Present a robust and highly experienced team ready to handle the work required.
- Leverage the diverse experiences of interim attorneys who have worked across different firms, cases, and/or in-house legal departments.
The right interim attorney can bring proven experience in their practice area as well as insights and best practices from their previous work experiences. This fresh perspective can lead to innovative solutions and strategies to enrich the services delivered to the client, and ultimately give your firm a competitive edge.
Harnessing Flexible Talent for Strategic Success
Leveraging flexible legal talent can be a game-changer for firms aiming to win lucrative business. By strategically integrating flexible legal talent, your firm can confidently bid for major projects without the burden of long-term commitments. This approach not only addresses immediate staffing needs but also positions your firm for long-term success in an increasingly competitive legal market.
At Latitude, we help law firms quickly add experienced attorneys during surge periods, special projects, secondments, and leaves of absence. Reach out to speak with one of our partners to get started.
