In-house legal talent trends for 2025: why secondments are on the rise

As General Counsel’s look for increasingly bespoke resourcing solutions, the secondment market is showing no signs of slowing down with demand increasing for experienced in-house lawyers across all sectors.

At the same time, lawyers are seeing the huge benefits that interim roles can have both personally and professionally, with many talented lawyers now opting for contracting as a career path in lieu of traditional roles in-house or in private practice.

Aspen Legal’s Director of Talent recently shared the trends we are seeing across our secondee talent pools, as well as her top tips for setting up for success in an interim position, and what makes for the perfect client/ secondee match.

You meet many people who are (or are considering) undertaking secondments. What do you see as the main driving factors for lawyers choosing this as a career path?

There are endless benefits to secondments and it’s very dependent on the individual as to what they will get out of it. The main driving factors generally include flexibility (whether that be the ability to work part time or to be able to combine work with family or other commitments) as well as the opportunity to gain experience within different industries and upskill across different businesses to directly contribute to their future career success.

We also see lawyers who want to be able to do interesting and challenging work day to day, but don’t want the mental load or workplace politics that can often accompany being really engrained within a business as a permanent employee.

What are you currently seeing in terms of skill set and experience in the talent pool? How does this match up with the current demands of clients in the market?

We always have, and I believe always will, have a very strong talent pool of senior lawyers and it makes sense given that the further you dive into your career, the more you learn, and ultimately the more you know what you do and don’t want from a workplace.

You also become more aware of development areas where you need to upskill and what moves you need to make to achieve your career goals. In saying this, we are increasingly seeing more lawyers at the mid-level becoming interested in secondments as they gain more awareness around how it can accelerate your career depending on your goals.

I think we will continue to see demand for lawyers at the 3-10 PQE levels and that remains a focus in terms of building our talent pipeline.

Flexible/ hybrid work is still a hot topic. What are you seeing in terms of trends from both a secondee and client perspective on this front?

Whilst there is a lot more talk about being in the office at least 50% of the time, and some companies have mandated this, we still have many clients across the country that have no problem engaging secondees on a remote basis.

It works really well for us because it means that clients open up more options for themselves and have access to some really incredible lawyers that they may not have had if they required that person to be in the office – especially if it is a niche skillset.

What can a secondee do to set themselves up for success in an interim role? How does Aspen Legal support this?

A trend that is common amongst our secondees who continue to be successful across a range of different clients is to have confidence in your abilities and to know what it is that you can bring to a team.

Cultural fit and knowing that you are going to provide a great level of service to the stakeholders of a business is, for the most part, more important to hiring managers than technical abilities.

Technical ability is important, but clients need to know they can rely on you providing a good service for both external and internal stakeholders. If you’re new to interim work and are still in a permanent role where you have a notice period, start having conversations with secondment providers like Aspen Legal to get an idea of what opportunities might be available for you in the future.

From there, you can work out what your buffer needs to be in case you are out of work for any amount of time between secondments, which can be the case when you’re getting started.

How does the Aspen Legal team work together to find the perfect secondee/ client match?

We partner closely with both our clients and our secondees to build long lasting relationships. We are continuously working to build our talent pool and get to know our secondees as well as we can (with many of our secondees now having worked with us for many years across multiple assignments). The more we get to know them the more we can get a deeper understanding of which clients they would fit well with.

Our team includes both legal and recruitment experts and our directors have been on the other side of the process in their time spent in-house which gives us a deep understanding of what our clients’ pain points are. We take feedback seriously and use that to curate the experience we provide for each individual client.

Every day, our talent team spends a significant amount of time covering the market to find new lawyers to meet with and ensure that our talent pool is always of the highest quality, whilst at the same time investing in our ongoing relationships with lawyers who have been with us from the start.

Any advice for lawyers considering secondments?

I think by now most people are realising that just because your contract says it’s a permanent position, it doesn’t necessarily give you any more stability than being in a contract role. Things can change quickly in this turbulent economy and it’s always good to keep your mind open.

Some of our secondees have had work continuously for over 2.5 years, sometimes with the same client. Put time into building a relationship with one or multiple secondment providers, the people that have a genuine interest in building a relationship with us are the people that we find ourselves going back to time and time again with new opportunities to work with our clients because we think of them as colleagues and we want to look after them and their careers.

Chat to one of the secondees in your current team to get their perspective – don’t just take our word for it. You might just be surprised… you never know where a ‘’short term’’ contract may lead to!

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Aspen Legal is one of Australia’s fastest growing interim legal contracting businesses focused exclusively on the in-house market. Whether you require extra support with a project, urgent leave cover or specialist expertise – our experienced in-house lawyers will hit the ground running to alleviate your pain points.