For many in-house legal teams, the resourcing conversation has changed.
It is no longer simply a question of whether the team needs another lawyer.
It is a question of what kind of capacity the team needs, how quickly it is needed, how long the need will last and whether permanent headcount is the right answer.
That distinction matters.
Legal teams are under pressure to support more business activity, manage regulatory change, respond faster to internal stakeholders, adopt AI and reduce external legal spend. But the broader labour market is making permanent hiring harder to justify and harder to execute.
The Hays Salary Guide FY26/27 paints a useful picture of this tension.
For General Counsel and Heads of Legal, this creates a practical problem.
You may need more capacity now, but that does not always mean you need another permanent lawyer forever.
Hiring will always have a place. But for many legal teams, secondments offer a faster, more flexible and more commercially sensible way to manage changing demand.
Why this matters now
The broader employment market is creating a narrow margin for error.
Hays reports that 82% of organisations experienced a skills shortage in the past 12 months, while the legal sector remains one of the industries where skills shortages are above average.
At the same time, employee expectations are shifting. Salary still matters, but it is no longer the only issue.
Secondments help legal teams respond to immediate demand while keeping longer-term workforce decisions open.
When hiring makes sense
Permanent hiring works best when the need is long-term and predictable.
For example, hiring is often appropriate where:
- The role is core to the legal function.
- The workload is stable and recurring.
- The organisation needs permanent institutional knowledge.
- There is a clear business case for ongoing headcount.
- The team has time to run a proper recruitment process.
- The role supports long-term succession or leadership planning.
The problem is using permanent hiring to solve temporary, uncertain or fast-moving resourcing challenges.
Where secondments are often a better fit
Secondments are particularly useful where the need is real, but the shape of that need is uncertain.
1. Workload spikes
- Major projects, procurement activity, disputes and regulatory reviews can quickly overwhelm internal teams.
- Permanent recruitment is often too slow to solve the immediate problem.
- Secondments provide fast access to additional capacity when it is needed most.
2. Projects, transactions and transformation work
- M&A activity, technology implementations, regulatory change programs and transformation projects create temporary spikes in legal demand.
- Secondments allow teams to scale up for the duration of the project and scale back when the work is complete.
- They can also reduce reliance on external counsel by bringing capability in-house.
3. Leave cover
- Parental leave, long service leave and extended absences can create significant pressure in lean legal teams.
- Secondments provide continuity without requiring a permanent hire.
- They help maintain service levels and preserve stakeholder relationships.
4. Specialist expertise
This might include:
- Privacy and data protection.
- Technology contracting.
- Employment and workplace relations.
- Construction and infrastructure.
- Regulatory change.
- Risk and compliance.
- Company secretariat.
- Legal operations.
- AI adoption and legal technology implementation.
A secondment can bring specialist capability into the team without requiring a permanent role before the operating model is clear.
5. When the team needs capacity to innovate
- Many legal teams want to improve processes, adopt AI and reduce external spend.
- The challenge is that the lawyers best placed to drive change are often already at capacity.
- Secondments can create the space required to move from intention to implementation.
- They may involve additional legal support, legal operations expertise or AI capability.
The advantages of secondments
Speed
- Secondments can often be deployed significantly faster than permanent hires.
- Clario typically presents suitable candidates within 24–72 hours.
Flexibility
- Secondments can be full-time, part-time, project-based, short-term or long-term.
- They allow legal teams to align resources with demand.
Cost control
- Avoid long-term salary commitments and recruitment costs.
- Reduce reliance on external counsel for work that can be managed internally.
Lower risk
- Access capability without making a permanent commitment.
- Adjust the resourcing model as business needs change.
Access to capability
- Bring in skills that do not currently exist within the team.
- Support technology, AI, operations and transformation initiatives.
What makes a good secondment work?
The strongest secondees typically:
- Understand in-house environments.
- Can work autonomously.
- Communicate clearly with business stakeholders.
- Provide practical, commercial advice.
- Adapt quickly to new systems and processes.
- Know when to escalate and when to make a call.
- Are comfortable operating without perfect information.
How legal teams are using secondments today
More legal teams are using secondments as part of a broader resourcing strategy.
- Covering workload spikes.
- Supporting major projects.
- Reducing external legal spend.
- Accessing specialist expertise.
- Creating capacity for internal transformation.
- Supporting AI and legal technology adoption.
- Managing uncertainty before committing to permanent headcount.
- Testing whether a role is genuinely required on a permanent basis.
Where Clario can help
Clario helps Australian in-house legal teams access experienced, commercially minded lawyers quickly and easily.
Our focus is on intelligent resourcing.
Whether you need parental leave cover, overflow support, specialist project expertise, legal operations capability or support with AI and legal technology adoption, we can help you find the right capability for the right situation.
Clario’s network includes more than 1,200 legal professionals, from paralegals through to senior lawyers.
The bottom line
Hiring will always have a place in building strong in-house legal teams.
But it should not be the default answer to every capacity problem.
For many legal teams, secondments provide a faster, more flexible and lower-risk way to manage changing demand.
In a market where legal teams are being asked to do more, move faster and adopt new ways of working, the smartest resourcing strategy is rarel
