Q&A: Jonathan Brenner

Thinking outside the box

Jonathan Brenner, the firm’s head of recruitment at Berwin Leighton Paisner, offers insight into the launch of their flexible recruitment initiative ‘Lawyers on Demand’ and reveals why it is proving such a success in the current climate. Interview by Lucy McNulty

Why was the ‘Lawyers on Demand’ programme established?
Our decision to launch ‘Lawyers on Demand’ was not only an attempt to address the increasing attrition of talented lawyers unhappy with the long-hours culture in law firms, but also a reaction to the growing trend for clients to move against firms’ traditional hourly-rate charging format.
I, and Berwin Leighton Pasiner (BLP)’s technology partner, Simon Harper, who runs the scheme with me, wanted to establish a pioneering programme that would enable clients to receive legal advice at a fraction of the usual cost and attract experienced lawyers back into the profession. The ‘Lawyers on Demand’ programme was the successful solution. It launched in 2007 and enabled us to send experienced freelance lawyers to clients who had requested secondees, instead of one- or two-year qualified lawyers as was common practice – and all at a new competitive price point.
The scheme was not a substitute for the firm’s traditional secondment programme – we still have over 50 BLP lawyers on secondment at any one time – but simply gave our clients the option to have a more experienced lawyer on hand, capable of getting involved in a role or project with little supervision, at roughly the same rate as a more junior secondee. And, as the only such scheme with the backing of a law firm, the freelance lawyers involved would benefit from an entirely novel way of working – one that would enable them to benefit from the support of a major firm (through know-how assistance, for example) without actually being an employee of that firm. From a relatively blank canvas a year ago we developed the programme into a new client service business with over £1m annual turnover.

Did you have any problems in implementing the initiative?
As the former owner of ZMB, one of the UK’s largest legal recruitment firms throughout the 1990s, I have substantial experience in the law firm recruitment arena and as such have a degree of gravitas within BLP and also the candidates that I talk to. Thanks to my experience, people are prepared to listen to me and my suggestions for new initiatives. I was lucky in that respect that I was able to talk in detail about the project with the key decision makers at the firm and that BLP is innovative enough in its approach to give projects like this its full support.
However, in order for such a scheme to succeed we needed to ensure we had enough candidates on board willing to take part. Yet we couldn’t simply advertise in the legal press and hope that lawyers who wanted to work differently would respond because many of those we were targeting were no longer working in the legal sphere. We therefore had to use different recruitment methods. We chose to concentrate our efforts on a ‘word-of-mouth’ campaign that would take advantage of the network of lawyers staff at the firm had, to publicise the scheme and reach our target audience. I invested a great deal of time talking to BLP employees about people they knew that might be interested in the project, and then I’d contact them directly and interview them. We also needed to ensure we had buy-in from our clients. Before launch, I took care to use some of BLP’s client partners to explain the programme, and the benefits of being involved in it, to some of our key clients to make sure clients were aware of and happy to participate in the scheme.
Additionally, launching the programme required a substantial amount of research to put the infrastructure in place. We had to ensure, for instance, that the freelance lawyers participating in the scheme were covered by our professional indemnity policy even though they are not actually employees of the firm, we had to confirm with our tax advisers on the status of those contracted with us, and discuss with our employment lawyers as to how best to retain the lawyers taking part. We also had to test the project with our clients to make sure it was going to work, as well as with the candidates to ensure they were happy. The whole process took about two years. But we couldn’t launch a scheme with such a strong client focus, without first ensuring it had been fully tried and tested. So there was certainly a very high barrier to entry, which is perhaps why no other law firms have shown enough mettle to do it themselves.

How important to do you think it is to have a recruitment scheme such as this in place in the current climate?
Adopting innovative processes is essential during a recession as when the majority of law firm departments have become very quiet you have got to do something that will make the clients take notice in order to stand out from the crowd. In fact a number of our current clients have become BLP clients because of our innovative approach – instructing us on more traditional legal work because they have seen how well we are running the ‘Lawyers on Demand’ scheme.
Maintaining a degree of flexibility is also fundamental, however, because otherwise you lose the opportunity to use legal talent that has traditionally been just out of reach of conventional employment models. There are lots of incredibly talented lawyers out there who, apart from the fact that they have outside interests as important to them be it parenting or another business, would be working full time in law firms or in-house legal departments. The legal profession is notoriously slow in recognising non-traditional opportunities. Schemes such as our freelance programme is one of the best examples of how the legal profession can embrace talent that doesn’t fall into the traditional law firm role.
During a downturn clients don’t want to spend any money on legal services unless they think they are getting value for money and value for money, in the current climate is much more than just being seen to do the work. It is investing in the client relationships as well. Lots of clients have got recruitment freezes and are also having to slash budgets on supplier services so they are not going to be allowed to spend as much on legal services as they used to, but by adopting an innovative, flexible approach to the provision of legal services it is possible for firms to continue to win business.

What’s next?
Law firm recruitment has undoubtedly been hugely affected by current market conditions. I have had former legal recruitment colleagues of mine say they have never been sent so many fantastic CVs from lawyers they cannot send anywhere. It is a brutal environment in which firms are letting go hundreds of talented lawyers who now have nowhere to go. Like many other firms we are not recruiting at the moment.
Conversely, the ‘Lawyers on Demand’ scheme is almost counter-cyclical and expanding very quickly. At present we’ve got around 20 lawyers on the scheme and I want to have 50 in the next two to three years.
As would be expected, I have had lots of applications from lawyers who have recently been made redundant by other firms. But as with any scheme attached to a law firm brand you have to be wary of why such applicants are interested in the scheme. The ‘Lawyers on Demand’ programme comes with a perception of quality which goes to the heart of why the recruitment initiative is so innovative. As such we can’t just take lawyers that are out of work and want a job while they are looking for something permanent. We need lawyers that are genuinely embracing a different style of working and are happy taking the leap of faith that comes with a freelance role. We can’t have people on the scheme who are panicking that they haven’t got work lined up.
I launched my last business in the teeth of a recession in 1991 and have therefore experienced similar (though not quite as severe) economic cycles before and understand that every cycle goes around. Things may be tough now but that is no reason not to invest in the long term in good talent.

For more information about ‘Lawyers on Demand’ visit www.blplaw.com/lawyersondemand/index.cfm

Jonathan Brenner is head of recruitment at Berwin Leighton Paisner. He can be contacted at jonathan.brenner@blplaw.com