A legal secondment puts an outside lawyer inside your legal team for a defined period, working on your matters, under your direction, as if they were a member of staff. When the period ends, they leave, and you have not added permanent headcount.
For a general counsel facing a parental leave gap, a hiring freeze or a six-month regulatory project, that is often exactly the right shape of help. The question is which secondment model you use, because the traditional law firm version and the newer flexible model work very differently and cost very differently.
How a Legal Secondment Works
In the traditional model, a law firm lends one of its associates to a client. The associate stays on the firm’s payroll and remains bound by its professional obligations, while the client directs the day-to-day work. Secondments typically run for several months, and many are full-time and on site.
The flexible model comes from alternative legal service providers. Instead of borrowing an associate from your law firm, you brief the provider on the role and it supplies a lawyer from its network, often someone with prior in-house experience. The lawyer can work full-time or part-time, on site or remotely, and the term can run from a few weeks to more than a year.
Both models put a lawyer in your team. The differences show up in who you can get, how fast, and what you owe in return.
Why In-House Teams Use Secondees
The most common reason is cover: parental leave, sabbaticals, or the gap between a resignation and a new hire. A secondee keeps the work moving without forcing you into a rushed permanent hire.
Projects are the second reason. An acquisition with heavy integration work, a regulatory remediation program, or a contract lifecycle management rollout all create months of work that will not last forever. A secondee with relevant experience in M\&A support or contract review can take the load without the overhead of a new permanent role.
Law firms use the same model in reverse. A partner facing overflow or a specialist gap can bring in a flexible lawyer to work inside the firm, a strategy we’ve described as building a flexible legal bench.
What a Legal Secondment Costs
Law firm secondments are often priced at a discount to the associate’s normal rates, and some firms offer them free of charge as an investment in the client relationship. That looks cheap, but there is an implicit return: the firm expects to stay close to your work and win more of it. You also get the associate the firm can spare at that moment, who may not have the in-house experience you need.
A flexible secondment through an alternative provider is usually priced as a day rate or a monthly fee that covers the lawyer and the provider’s vetting and support. You pay for the time you use, with no expectation attached to future instructions.
The right comparison is against your realistic alternatives. A permanent hire carries salary, benefits, recruiting fees and a long notice period on exit. Sending the same work to outside counsel at hourly rates usually costs more for ongoing, embedded work, and you lose the benefit of a lawyer who knows your business from the inside.
How to Make a Secondment Work
Treat the first week like any other onboarding. Give the secondee system access, a clear list of matters and decision rights, and a named supervisor on your team, so they spend their time on legal work rather than chasing logins.
Settle the practical points in writing before the start date. That includes confidentiality, conflicts checks, who supervises the work, professional indemnity insurance, data access, and how the secondee will hand over open matters when the term ends. If the secondee may move into a permanent role later, agree on the terms for that up front with the provider.
Plan the exit from day one. A good secondment ends with documented matters, updated templates and a clean handover, not a scramble in the final week.
LawFlex works on the flexible model: you brief the role, receive vetted candidates from a network of 2,500+ lawyers typically within 24 hours, interview them, and the lawyer starts without a long-term contract. Our flexible legal staffing team handles everything from a two-month leave cover to a year-long project role.
FAQ
What is a legal secondment?
A legal secondment is a temporary arrangement in which a lawyer from an outside organization, usually a law firm or legal services provider, works inside another organization’s legal team. The secondee works under the host’s direction for a set period and then returns.
How long does a legal secondment last?
Most run for several months, but there is no fixed length. Flexible secondments through an alternative legal service provider can be as short as a few weeks for leave cover or longer than a year for a major project.
Who pays a seconded lawyer?
The lawyer’s employer or provider pays them directly, and the host organization pays the employer or provider a fee. In law firm secondments that fee is often discounted, while flexible providers usually charge a day rate or monthly fee.
Can a legal secondee work remotely?
Yes. Traditional law firm secondments are usually on site, but many flexible secondments are fully remote or hybrid, which widens the pool of available lawyers and can shorten the time it takes to fill the role.
