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“I had no access to the company’s software programs and legal database during the first 3 days of my assignment. I felt really useless and only costing money to the client.”  Not something you would want to hear from your freelance legal counsel! Which is why onboarding your freelance legal counsel the right way is an essential first step. 

Save yourself time, energy and money by following these 5 proven tips to onboard freelance legal counsels and set them up for success from day one:

1. Make them feel welcome

When you have found your freelance legal counsel, you have signed an assignment agreement and both are ready to dive in, adopt a “welcome” approach, making sure your freelance legal counsel feels confident and wanted, stepping into a new working environment. 

In this context, prepare all necessities and give access to all resources – such as office space, equipment and documents – for a smooth transition. Providing an access badge (if applicable) and/or necessary access codes to software and/or system programs facilitates onboarding and reduces the startup time considerably.  Also, show the way to the coffee corner where the good coffee is served.

2. Inform your legal team and prepare the brief for the projects, files or tasks

Inform your team about the start and the role of the freelance legal counsel and have them list a number of files, tasks or projects into which your team members would like to involve (or transfer to) the freelance legal counsel. Inform the freelance legal counsel which are the priorities and strategy of your legal department as a whole in order to create value to the business.

Delegating legal files can be challenging and take a lot of time. However, freelance legal counsels want to contribute and add value to the legal team and the business right away and make a positive first impression. No better way to make them feel engaged than to assign key projects and tasks from the start. 

3. Prepare a list of contact details of key business people and managers

Scheduling introductions with different teams or team members and providing an organigram of the company, company delegations and processes to be followed have proven to be essential.  

4. Explain the company culture and vision as well as its ways to communicate

What are your company’s values and internal behaviors? Freelance legal counsels are to fit in in your legal team and business. Clearly informing and communicating about this is really helpful to onboard a freelance legal counsel. This could be operational things like what days people are working remote or are in the office, where to park their car, when there are weekly team or status meetings and how the work load is divided. Which is the company language that should be used? In multinationals it is often English in all written matters, even when you email your colleague speaking the same language. Also, it is essential to know how the legal team communicates to its internal clients and other stakeholders of the company.

More intangible aspects are the values of your company that you expect your freelance legal counsel upholds while working together.

5. Give and solicit feedback on a recurring schedule

Establish a collaboration built on transparency and trust while keeping a big focus on feedback. Freelance legal counsels are in a prime position to help the business learn and grow, bringing much expertise from previous assignments with great companies in various industries. Use their specific knowledge, valuable insights and out-of-the-box ideas and translate them to your own team and business.  

Meaningful collaborations require recurrent input from both parties. Encourage your freelance legal counsel to ask questions and be open with their answers.

By making simple preparations both parties can maximize the value of the partnership. Use these 5 proven tips to onboard your freelance legal counsel and see just how impactful this approach can be!

Limine helps you find your freelance legal counsel today!

If you’re ready to work with excellent freelance legal counsels for your assignments, whether interim or ad hoc, Limine is able to help you. Limine connects businesses with the independent legal consultants they need.

Create a profile on our platform, publish your assignment and start connecting with relevant legal interim counsels right away. Visit Limine today to set up an account and get started.

A growing number of businesses, big and small, and their legal departments are using the services of freelance legal counsels.  But why are they doing that and what are the benefits?

1. Strategy

As we all know, there is a war for legal talent going on. It suffices to have a short look on LinkedIn or on the websites of LexGo or IBJ/IJE to see how many businesses are looking for permanent in-house legal counsels.   

Finding the perfect match can be hard.  Not only you need to find the candidate with the right legal skills and business mind, he/she should also fit in the company culture and get along with the other members of the legal and business team.

It also tends to be a time consuming process.  And you should take the time you need, as you don’t want to end up having to go through the hiring and training process for the same permanent position every six months.  However, what about the work that keeps piling up in the meantime? Sure, as legal profiles are generally hard workers, your legal department shall indeed work even more and harder, but honestly, they can’t go on like that for months.  Your legal department, your company and you all deserve a better and structural solution.

This is why hiring a freelance legal counsel is a smart strategic choice.  Many freelance legal counsels have a background as a lawyer and have in-house experience.  No need to train them as they quickly blend in thanks to their legal skills and adapting personality. Getting to use their excellent services for a few months, or more, allows you to close the gap of the hiring process and keep your legal team members, business colleagues and other stakeholders happy.

Also, hiring a freelance legal counsel may be part of your hiring process for a permanent position.  Indeed, both you and your freelance legal counsel get to work together and get to know each other outside the framework of a permanent position, but, who knows, maybe you have found your in-house legal counsel already…

Our matching technology makes sure that you get access to the 3 most relevant profiles, so that you lose no time and energy in ploughing through too many and too irrelevant CV’s.

2. Flexibility

You are a biotech company and you need extra legal brains in the context of a clinical study?  You are a public company and need to face big projects and legal challenges that change depending on which politician is calling the shots? You are a retailer or a manufacturing company and you need to adopt new business and legal strategies?  In our fast changing world, all companies in all industries need at some point to act quickly in order to keep on top from a legal point of view.

Or, imagine your top legal counsel is going on maternity leave, wants to take a sabbatical for a year, or is simply not available for whichever reason for a few months or longer?  What can you do?  Easy, you look for a legal interim counsel and you agree to hire him/her for as long as you need them, full time or part time.

3. Plug and play

No need to train legal interim counsels.  As already said above, they often have experience both as a lawyer and working at companies and possess the right legal skills and mind set to start working and deliver added value almost immediately.

As they are high achievers and face fierce competition, they already keep up-to-date with the latest news relating to their field in order to get ahead of their competitors. This represents a saving for you, both in terms of time and money.

Moreover, legal interim counsels have a personality that likes to be independent, so they also like to work independently and have the ownership of their projects.   

Freelance legal counsels also bring a lot of experience from other legal departments of other companies with them.  This way, they often bring a fresh way of solving legal issues to the table and they may share valuable learnings and legal insights.

4.  Easy administration

No hassle with the paperwork.  Concluding a contract with a freelance legal counsel is way easier and quicker than hiring an employee, due to all stringent administrative steps that need to be respected. The same goes for ending a collaboration.

5.  ROI

Return on Investment. You won’t hear me say that working with freelance legal counsels is cheap, because it isn’t.  No monkeys and no peanuts in our line of freelance business.

But I do dare to say it’s worth the investment.  Taking into account all advantages and benefits, your investment pays itself quickly back in added value.  Especially if you find your freelance legal counsel through our Limine platform, where, not only you know how much commission you’ll pay, but you also get to negotiate directly with your legal interim counsel.

Let Limine help you find your legal interim counsel today!

If you’re ready to work with excellent freelance legal counsels for your assignments , whether interim or ad hoc, Limine is able to help you. Limine connects businesses with the independent legal consultants they need.

Create a profile on our platform, publish your assignment and start connecting with relevant legal interim counsels right away. Visit Limine today to set up an account and get started

Working as an independent legal consultant is getting more and more popular.  Not very surprising when you think about it, as it does have a number of excellent perks. Of course, it all depends on what is important for you.  Personally, I experienced these 5 advantages:

1. Freedom

This is an important one for me. Being a freelance legal consultant offers you much more freedom than when you are on someone else’s pay roll.  You choose which kind of assignments you accept, which clients you take on, what your daily or hourly rate is, when and where you work. Basically, you are your own boss and you get to make these decisions.

Thanks to Limine an extra layer of freedom is added.  You get to negotiate directly with the client. Being lawyers or legal counsels, we are no strangers to handle negotiations…

2. Flexibility and work/life balance

You can choose the rhythm of your work.  What does this mean?  Imagine this world trip you have always wanted to make.  You’d need at least a few months for that.  Taking off from work that long while being an employee or a lawyer is almost impossible without kind of burning your career (there may be exceptions, but I know of only one single case).  When you are your own boss, this dream can become true as you can easily do a few assignments, earn enough money and then just take those 6 months or more of world travel.

This freelance flexibility means also that you can choose the days or hours per week that you want to work.  This may even change during the holidays or depending on the assignment.  I almost never work on Wednesdays to be with my two girls.  A friend of mine, also legal interim manager, takes off two months every year during the summer holidays – no more puzzling on which summer camp you can subscribe your children or which grandparent is able to have your children over.. Another legal interim manager combines his art gallery with a two days/week assignment.

Also, a lot of legal work can be done digitally, which means you can be fully remote and live where you want.  The pandemic has proven that extensively, but even before that, freelance legal consultants were in most cases able to choose whether and when they wanted to do home office.

Surely you can think of other things for yourself why this flexibility is indeed not that bad!

3. Smart career move

If you are considering a career as an in-house legal counsel, becoming a freelance legal interim manager is a great starting point.

Being a freelance legal consultant at a company is like getting to see and try out the kitchen of a restaurant.  You get to learn the ins and outs, you get to meet the business people, you get to work with the other legal team members and to taste the atmosphere of the company. No fuzzy job descriptions anymore – you get a real taste of the work.

It’s in any case a smart career move as you will likely get to work in top companies too. Nothing wrong with having that on your cv!

4. Improved legal and business skills

Working as a freelance legal consultant means you take on various projects from multiple clients in different industries. Each project brings something new to the table and provides an opportunity to expand your legal skill set. If you want to become acquainted with other legal practice areas, this is a great way to do that.  I

You get also to improve your business skills, offering you an even better understanding of what clients expect from their lawyer or legal counsel.

5. Network

As you get in contact with different people from multiple companies, you will expand your network rapidly.  Your network may get you your next assignment, doors will open and opportunities will arise.  It’s up to you to take them!

Of course, not everybody feels at ease to network.  In that case, a platform like Limine may be able to assist you.

Let Limine help you find your next legal assignment today!

If you’re ready to take on freelance legal assignments, whether interim or ad hoc, Limine is able to help you. Limine connects businesses with independent legal consultants they need.

Create a profile on our platform and begin connecting with potential clients right away. Visit Limine today to set up an account and get started.

Reminder to all Flemish businesses: the Flemish Enterprise Protection Mechanism is here! What is this? Well, on October 12, 2021, the Flemish government established the Flemish Protection Mechanism to provide financial support to enterprises that suffered a decrease in turnover as a result of the coronavirus measures of October 28, 2020.

• For which companies?
  1. Companies with a place of business in the Flemish Region and with a social security or VAT NACE code in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE) corresponding to the activity of the affected company,
  2. Active in the one of the exhaustively listed sectors, including travel agencies, passenger transport via coaches, hotels, event companies, discotheques and dancings,
  3. those pursuant to the measures of the Consultative Committee as of October 28, 2020 on coronavirus,
  4. face a decrease in sales of at least 60% in the period from July 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021. The reference period for calculating the decrease in sales is the period from July 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019.

• What?

Already worthwhile, and certainly for a lot of SME’s… After all, the premium amounts to 10% of the turnover (excluding VAT) realized by your affected company in the period from 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019.

The aid is capped as follows:

• Up to a maximum of € 22,500 for companies with an NSSO employment of up to and including 9 employees.
• Up to a maximum of € 45,000 for companies with an NSSO employment from 10 to 49 employees.
• Up to a maximum of € 120,000 for companies with a NSSO employment of 50 employees or more.

The number of employees is based on the personnel class to which a company belongs according to the latest available NSSO personnel class in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises.

• How?

It’s easy… more or less. The application must be submitted online no later than November 16, 2021, 8pm and through the website https://www.e-loketondernemers.be. As the legal representative, you access the e-desk of your affected company via e-ID or Itsme. Then click on the pink button ‘APPLY’, in your e-desk to follow the further steps of the application procedure. The grant application will then continue to be processed electronically.

You have questions or you want to learn more about this? Contact us and find out how one of our LIMINE legal consultants can help you!