Other providers of interim or overflow resourcing provide individuals which have to be selected and managed by the instructing lawyers.
In contrast, we provide fully formed teams, led by experienced legal project managers. Our legal project managers provide a single point of contact with clients. They learn about each client’s requirements and select appropriately qualified and experienced team members from our freelancer pool.
During the course of engagements, our project managers monitor and report across all aspects of delivery, including quality and performance. Our PMs spot and resolve any delivery issues long before they become an issue for our clients.
On projects where feedback is required from our clients, our PMs collate comments (avoiding duplication) and present them in a user-friendly way for the instructing lawyers to provide feedback.
Traditionally, interim legal resource providers draw on law graduates and very junior lawyers.
In contrast, we draw on a pool of experienced legal freelancers, many of whom have 5-10 years’ PQE at leading law firms and corporate in-house teams.
We are able to draw on an overly experienced pool thanks to our commitment to truly agile working arrangements. We attract people who have left traditional work due to family commitments or relocation away from cities and commuter belts.
With greater experience comes greater confidence to exercise discretion and to provide wider insights to the instructing lawyers. This is especially true in the case of disclosure or due diligence reviews, where our freelancers are the first to come across issues that the instructing lawyers may not even be aware of.
Many of our competitors have invested in particular legal technology solutions, which constrains their ability to recommend the best tool for any given job.
In contrast, we work with the leading legal tech and collaboration platforms to ensure that our services are delivered as efficiently as possible.
We have not tied ourselves to any particular provider and we pass technology costs without mark-up. Therefore, we are free to choose the right tool for the job, and the right mix of human effort and technology.
For our internal collaboration, we use a suite of secure collaboration platforms and software including virtual machines hosted on Amazon Workspaces with Duo two-factor authentication, and Microsoft Teams.
In many respects, Jena was muse for Jandr. Jena trained at Norton Rose (now with added Fulbright) and qualified into a dispute resolution team specialising in shipping, aviation and energy disputes. She left after 4 years’ PQE to start a family and quickly took the decision that she did not want to return to commuting life and law firm office hours while her children were young.
When she was ready to return to work in 2015, she could not find a working arrangement which would allow her to use her qualifications and experience, but which would be compatible with family life.
In an average week, Jena would have 20 plus hours’ capacity, but would need some flexibility as to when those hours are worked and the ability to flex the hours up and down depending on other commitments. We knew many other mums in that situation, plus dads and others with non-parenting commitments and priorities and, hey presto, a business was born.
When Jena isn’t performing performing document reviews and generally running the business, she’s running the family, playing tennis, reading or enjoying a glass of wine.
The recent developments in legal technology came about at the perfect time for Ryan, to help him make sense of his own CV. Ryan studied computing modules as part of his engineering degree and after graduating he worked in IT consultancy for PwC and IBM for 5 years.
In 2002 he embarked on a career change which saw him take the law conversion course and LPC. He trained at Travers Smith in 2004 and qualified into their commercial dispute resolution team. In 2010 he left to go in-house and had stints at EY, Mercedes-Benz and Accenture.
Ryan experienced electronic document reviews in private practice and in-house and found that his experience in both IT and law left him particularly well placed to bridge the gap which often arises between this disciplines on eDisclosure review projects.
When Ryan isn’t managing reviews or other projects, he is generally thinking about the last Tottenham Hotspur match, watching the current match or thinking about the next match. In addition, he helps to run one of the largest grassroots football clubs in the country and coaches his daughter’s football team, dabbles in a bit of tennis, cycling and warm weather sailing.
Our freelancers have complete control over their working hours and locations, allowing them to build a flexible and sustainable working arrangement.
Ours is a service provided by lawyers, for lawyers. As such, we understand the high standards of quality and accuracy that are required, even for the more mundane, less glamorous tasks.
Our remote working arrangement combined with a commitment to entirely offset our carbon footprint is sustainable for the planet.
We support our freelancers on their journey with us, with guidance and constructive feedback to develop their skills and expertise. This is especially true in the case of our freelancers who are returning to work after a period of time out to start a family or to pursue other non-legal interests.
We provide immediate and much-needed support to our lawyer clients. Our fully formed teams are lead by an experienced legal project manager, freeing up the instructing lawyers to focus on their more urgent matters.
