About Flex Legal

"I remember walking around the city while I was doing the GDL and the LPC, desperate for work. Eventually, I managed to find work experience as a secretary for a shipping arbitrator, but it wasn’t easy to get there.

Fast forward a few years and I was a qualified solicitor working in litigation. I was facing an imminent court deadline with forty huge bundles to make. I remember sitting at my desk and looking out of the window, and seeing a group of Kaplan law students exactly where I had been a few years ago. I knew from experience that those students would have jumped at the chance to get legal work experience, and I knew associates like myself were desperate for their help.

Suddenly, the idea for Flex Legal was born."

Shortly after, Mary met James, an experienced software developer, and knew he could help make her dream a reality. James become Co-Founder of Flex and they began working together on a tech platform that could connect law students to law firms and in-house teams as efficiently as possible. They analysed what was taking too long in traditional recruitment, and how they could use tech to make it easier.

After a successful first three years, Mary and James shifted Flex's focus from solely providing paralegal opportunities, and began to work on onboarding interim lawyers onto our platform too. Determined to tackle the industry’s notoriously poor work/life balance, Flex aims to give lawyers the opportunity to take back control of their career through flexible, interim work.

In 2021, after learning about the key changes that the new SQE route would bring to the legal industry, Mary came up with the idea for Flex Trainee, an SQE training scheme designed to help socially mobile aspiring lawyers break into law.

Flex Trainee helps us to take our mission to make the legal industry more diverse, inclusive, and flexible for all a step further. A scheme which has been created to support talented, aspiring lawyers qualify in-house through the new SQE route.

To date, we are proud to have placed over 50 trainees within the in-house legal teams of organisations such as Vodafone, ASOS, Trustpilot, The Crown Estate and Diageo.

After leading Flex for 7 years, Mary decided to take a step back and appointed James Lewindon as CEO in her place, following a year-long search. James is a former partner of Eversheds Sutherland, and was Head of Legal Resourcing at their alternative legal services division, Konexo UK.

Mary continues to be heavily involved with Flex in her new position as Founder, and will continue to focus on incubating new ideas and business offerings for Flex's future. With James on board, who has an unbelievable track record, we hope that Flex's growth will continue to accelerate even further.

Regarding his appointment as Flex CEO, James said: “I have long admired Flex Legal and am really delighted to join the fantastic team. As the legal market evolves, creating a diverse, inclusive, and representative industry is essential to its relevance and future success. I am greatly looking forward to driving Flex Legal’s agenda forwards, and fostering exciting changes across the entire legal space.”

During July 2023, the Flex Trainee underwent its first ever evolution, and the scheme was expanded into three distinct routes: Flex Trainee, Flex Apprentice, and Flex Talent Development (find out more on our Flex Trainee page).

On the back of this new development, we were absolutely delighted to be listed as the only legal organisation on the Flexi-job Apprenticeship Register. This means that we have officially been recognised by the Department for Education as the only legal organisation in the UK to 'recruit and employ apprentices and arrange placements with a variety of host businesses for the duration of an apprenticeship'.

We are proud of everything the Flex team has achieved through working closely with our clients, paralegals, lawyers and trainees to create incredible, life-changing opportunities. Here are some of our highlights so far:

Diversity and inclusion are not just corporate buzz words – they are core tenets of Flex Legal’s work.

We love the legal industry. With that love comes a desire to see it improve and be more diverse, more inclusive, and more representative of the society it serves. This is why Flex factors social mobility into everything we do, and here are just some of the ways we’re doing just that: