Legal Secondments Market: 2025 Predictions

In what is traditionally a quiet period across the legal industry, the in-house market showed no signs of slowing down at the end of 2024 and into the new year.

Feedback from many of Aspen Legal’s corporate clients is that activity has indeed increased over the last couple of months, with Heads of Legal now looking for interim resourcing solutions to support both existing BAU demands as well as flex up for strategic projects that are on the agenda this year.

With 2025 set to be a busy and exciting year for the secondments market, Aspen Legal Managing Director Nat Parbhu discusses his top predictions for the coming 12 months below:

Continuing uncertainty will drive ongoing demand

The previous 12 months has reflected one of the busiest times I can recall in the last 10 years of running secondments businesses. Coming into 2025 there continues to be significant uncertainty in the markets and economy resulting from a combination of global and domestic events, including Trump being re-elected to office, conflict in Gaza and the Ukraine, impending trade/tariff wars, the upcoming Australian election, and the ongoing high cost of living and housing crisis.

This uncertainty is driving ongoing strong demand for flexible resourcing solutions as we see headcount freezes across multiple sectors whilst workloads remain the same (if not on the rise) for in-house legal teams. The work still needs to get done and we’re going to see an increasing demand for interim solutions whilst Heads of Legal consider what BAU looks like over the coming year before attempting to secure an increased budget for permanent employee headcount growth.

The shift towards high-quality interim legal support is creating stronger secondee talent pools, with contracting now seen as a smart, ambitious career choice — a trend that will only accelerate as Gen Z lawyers enter the workforce.

Heads of Legal are increasingly seeking bespoke legal resourcing solutions

Heads of Legal are becoming far more sophisticated as to how they resource their teams and over the last 12+ months there has been an increased trend in taking a ‘fit for purpose’ approach to individual issues. Whilst there will always be a place for traditional law firms, there is a growing awareness that law firms are not best placed for certain work types and that BAU in-house legal work is a better fit (from both a cost and skills perspective) for experienced in house lawyers on contract.

Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) will only continue to become more mainstream in the coming year as smart Heads of Legal resource particular requirements on a bespoke basis, for example by sourcing a particular skill set from genuine secondment providers like Aspen Legal as opposed to panel law firms or their secondment spin-offs which usually still conform to the traditional big law requirements including aversion to risk and reluctance (or inability) to make pragmatic business decisions.

Rapidly expanding secondee talent pools

The bespoke approach applied by Heads of Legal will continue to drive the demand for high quality interim support, which will inevitably grow the size and calibre of secondee talent pools. This is a win-win for both clients as well as secondees who will have access to a more diverse range of opportunities than ever before.

Attitudes towards contracting have now completely changed, with clients understanding the real value that diversity of experience gained from working across multiple businesses, industries and corporate cultures can bring. Around 10 years ago when contracting lawyering first really started to take off in Australia and I was a co-owner of secondments business lexvoco, there was a perception that these roles were for lawyers not capable or ambitious enough to build a successful career either in private practice or in-house. We are continuing to see growth in the number of exceptional lawyers choosing contracting as a primary career for a wide range of reasons.

With Gen Z now coming through the ranks, we anticipate that we will see more lawyers taking up in-house roles at an earlier stage in their career as the prospect of working in private practice becomes less attractive. This will unlock new secondee talent pools at a more junior level which will be in high-demand from Heads of Legal looking for lawyers with in-house experience in the 1 – 5 year PQE bracket.

AI unlikely to impact demand

AI continues to be a hot topic across the legal industry as lawyers harness the technology for productivity and cost benefits. So what will be the impact of AI technology on legal secondments?

We don’t foresee it having a material impact on the legal secondments market (or indeed in-house in general) while the different models jostle for space, are refined and attempt to establish trust in the market as a source of truth.

This may of course change in the future, but we don’t envisage AI having any significant effect in the next 12 months.

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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.