Temporary Placement

Temporary and flexible legal staffing connects law firms and, increasingly, corporate legal departments with attorneys, paralegals, and other legal professionals for project based, interim, or secondment work without the commitment of a permanent hire. Solutions range from online marketplaces where firms post projects or hourly work and freelance attorneys apply directly, with the platform handling vetting, conflicts checks, confidentiality agreements, and payment, to staffing providers that source and place interim lawyers, paralegals, trainees, and company secretaries into in-house teams and firms. Some providers focus narrowly on attorney placement, others specialize in paralegals and legal support staff, and a number of alternative legal service providers offer flexible staffing as one part of a broader managed services relationship. Common use cases include covering workload spikes, employee leave, or hiring freezes, supporting M&A, regulatory, or other surge periods, and accessing specialized expertise not available internally. In-house legal departments increasingly treat flexible legal talent as a standing strategic resourcing option, planned into annual budgets and matched to anticipated demand, rather than purely a reactive solution to unplanned gaps. Generative AI has begun to appear at the margins of this category, including AI assistants that help firms navigate marketplace platforms, though matching and vetting remain largely human driven.