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Lending Lawyers: Secondments Gaining Popularity
By Lorelei Laird
May 20, 2008
GC California
A few large law firms have been arranging secondments -- short-term contracts under which companies "borrow" an outside lawyer for a few weeks to a year or more -- for years, particularly as a service to overseas clients who are more familiar with the practice. But as corporate law departments continue to face budget pressures, more GCs, along with their outside counsel, are taking a closer look at arranging their own secondments.
How does this sound as a way to shore up some of your in-house staffing needs? Start by bringing on a new attorney and working with her for up to a year -- with your only expense being the lawyer's salary. It also might help to know that the lawyer comes straight to you from a well-regarded law firm that you've been working with on a regular basis. And at the end of the year, the lawyer will return to her firm, armed with firsthand experience of your company's legal and business needs and, therefore, better able to improve the firm's service to you.
That might sound like a too-good-to-be-true arrangement for law departments constantly looking for ways to maximize the value they receive from their outside firms. But it's a reality for companies that take advantage of "secondments" -- short-term contracts under which they borrow an outside lawyer for anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more. The lawyer, typically an experienced associate, takes on the duties comparable to any other newly-hired in-house lawyer. While the company generally pays the attorney's salary, it avoids the overhead expenses attached to an outside lawyer. While some companies pick up the cost of benefits beyond the lawyer's salary, others save on that score as well.
"In general, law firms don't always understand ... what pressures we're under. A secondment is a great information exchange," says Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel at Cisco Systems. After the secondment, he says, "they generally are a lot more sensitive to what adds value and what doesn't."
Outside lawyers who have taken on temporary inside assignments agree that the process makes them better business attorneys. "It helps you perform better if you know who you're working for and what's important to them," says Bruce Rome, a special counsel in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris who is currently on a secondment assignment at Bayer, the giant pharmaceutical company.
The word "secondment" comes from a British military term describing a soldier's temporary reassignment to another regiment. In legal circles, the practice has been common for decades among Britain's large firms and their corporate clients as well as firms and clients throughout the rest of Europe and Asia. While secondments occur more rarely in the United States, a few large law firms have been arranging them for years, particularly as a service to overseas clients who are more familiar with the practice. But as corporate law departments continue to face budget pressures, more GCs, along with their outside counsel, are taking a closer look at arranging their own secondments. . . .
Rees Morrison, a vice president at consulting firm Hildebrandt International, says secondments can be an effective solution to temporary personnel gaps, such as a maternity leave, an illness or long-term training. In those situations, says Morrison, a secondment can be preferable to a temporary contract attorney because it results in a lawyer from a firm whose work is already known and trusted by in-house counsel. There's also the added benefit of cementing ties between outside counsel and their corporate clients. "You end up with the opportunity to build a stronger relationship with firms where you have a true partnership," says Cisco's Chandler, whose law department has used secondments from several firms over the past several years. "I wouldn't do it with a firm that I intended to have a one-off relationship with."
Perhaps most importantly to in-house lawyers, secondments are a way to beef up their departments without breaking the budget. Chandler, whose company bears the costs of benefits as well as salaries in its secondments, says the arrangement can cost more than internal hiring but less than hiring outside counsel to do the same work. But along with the added costs come greater efficiencies, adds Chandler, because of the experience that the outside lawyer brings to the table when joining a company's in-house staff. . . .
Rome, the Duane Morris attorney who's currently working with Bayer, says his secondment has been valuable for him and the pharmaceutical giant. "I'm personally learning a lot about their operations and what their needs are," he says. "From my perspective, that's huge. It's really a good learning experience, [and] peace of mind for them."
In fact, the arrangement has been so successful that Rome's contract has been renewed a few times, stretching out his time at Bayer to nearly two years. Rome works from the company's Berkeley offices one day a week and handles Bayer work from his own office on another day. He focuses on contracts, legal agreements and some training matters. Because of his litigation background, Rome has also been able to help out on some of those matters.
Rome thinks that his part-time physical presence at Bayer makes it easier for company employees to raise legal questions that normally might not warrant a phone call to outside counsel. Of course, he also is quick to call on other lawyers at his firm when questions arise that fall outside his expertise.
Rome says his time with Bayer has given him an appreciation for some of the pressures it's under. Beatrice O'Donnell, a Duane Morris partner in Philadelphia who helped arrange Rome's secondment, puts it succinctly: "When you're talking to your client on a virtually daily basis, you get to understand what keeps them up at night."
Ultimately, that's precisely what most GCs want from all of their outside counsel.
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