The importance of properly resourcing litigation projects cannot be overstated. The challenge confronting litigators, therefore, is how to juggle the two conflicting priorities of quality vs cost. In this report, we explore how interim resourcing solves both problems.

There's nothing we love more than highlighting the fantastic work of our paralegals, lawyers and trainees. This month we were thrilled to have a chat with Daniyal, a multilingual LLB Law Graduate, who has worked on multiple Flex placements, from Huel to Freshfields. Take a read to hear all about his experience!

The unparalleled Jennifer Talabi has been admitted to the SRA's Solicitor Roll. Read about her journey to qualification via the LPC and SQE, and her Qualifying Work Experience placements via Flex Trainee!

The Crown Estate are a historic and unique company, and a partner for our Flex Trainee scheme. They share our vision for a more socially mobile, inclusive legal profession. Read about the work we've been doing together!

At Flex Legal, we absolutely love bringing communities of legal professionals together. Our Junior Lawyer Lunches are a great example of this, and this year we’re proud to have had over 1,000 attendees throughout our events. For anyone looking for a quick recap, here’s a rundown of all our sessions throughout 2022!

Flex Trainee is our SQE qualification programme, designed to help diverse, talented aspiring lawyers from socially mobile backgrounds get into the industry. We had a chat with Mark Sanford, General Counsel at Next15 Communications, about their experience of the scheme so far.

Tony, a commercial solicitor with four and a half years' PQE, came to Flex Legal in June on the lookout for a new challenge. Keen to diversify and broaden his legal experience, he's adapted to an entirely new industry whilst on an interim placement at a global automotive company. Take a read to hear all about his experience of using Flex.

For our latest Junior Lawyer Lunch, we were joined by ESG experts, Simone Davidson, Head of LexisPSL Environment, and Simon Colvin, Partner at Weightmans. Here's a summary of their valuable insight into why ESG should be important to junior lawyers and how you can make a real difference.

Julia joined the Flex Legal platform towards the end of 2021 on the lookout for a remote, real estate role. Within three days, we found her the perfect position at DWF and since then, she's thrived on a second placement at BCLP. Take a read to see what she has to say about working as an interim lawyer through Flex!

Book a place at July's Junior Lawyer Lunch Event. This is a continuation of our Junior Lawyer Virtual Lunches, which offer industry insights, professional tips and networking opportunities.

Legal hackathons are growing in popularity, and more and more legal groups are exploring the problem-solving middleground between law and technology. We wanted to know more about "legal hackathons" so put your questions to the Manchester Legal Hackers. Read what they had to say!

In our latest Commercial News Round-Up, our resident commercial king Jacob Darcy runs through the latest commercial news from across the legal industry. He covers the private equity surge, the battle for McColls, "stagflation", and the recent rise in interest rates!

Rebecca has been working as an interim lawyer through Flex Legal since January. We had a quick chat with her to discuss how interim working has drastically improved her work/life balance, and to see what advice she’d give to any aspiring lawyers.

Flex Legal, in association with the O Shaped Lawyer, are excited to release the findings of our Future Lawyers Survey. Conducted with 418 next-gen lawyers, this report records how they feel about the legal industry, and what change they want to see. Read the full report here.

Flex Legal are back again bringing an array of teams together (virtually) from across the thriving Northern In-house legal community; aimed at all levels of legal professionals, from paralegals to GC's.

In association with LexisNexis, for May's Event, our very own Sabina Gabrielczyk, Account Management Associate at Flex, will be joined by Maaike de Bie, GC and Company Secretary at easyJet, for an exclusive fireside chat.

Flex Trainee is our groundbreaking scheme to make the law a more diverse and socially mobile industry. We launched the scheme last year, and are well on our way to setting up our third cohort of Flex Trainees. Read more about the scheme!

In association with LexisNexis, for our April Junior Lawyer Lunch Event Tarun Tawakley, Partner at Lewis Silkin, and Chloe Mason-Williams, Head of Legal at EDF Energy, will be helping you to understand what it means to be commercial as a lawyer.

Dan Kayne is Founder of the O Shaped Lawyer, and a GC at Network Rail. In this episode of the podcast, he talks with Louise Anderson about how and why he wants to make the legal industry more human-centric.

In association with The Law Society and LexisNexis, for our March Junior Lawyer Lunch Event we'll be hosting a panel of senior lawyers to listen to what you as junior lawyers feel about the culture and ethics of the legal industry currently.

We ask all our paralegals for feedback on their placements, and when it’s lovely - we love to share it! We’ve taken the time to pull together some of our fave examples - take a look to see what they think about interim legal work through Flex.

Do you want your work to be featured on our blog? We'd love for you to submit written pieces to us so we can raise your profile in the industry. Our guidelines and rules for submission are listed here in full!

Kiran Radhakrishnan is Head of Norton Rose Fulbright's Newcastle Hub, and NRF Transform (EMEA). He sits down with Mary Bonsor to discuss legal trainee schemes, how they're looking to shape the industry, and the opportunities and challenges ahead of them.

Application season is well underway! If you're looking to break into a career in law, you're going to have to contend with open days sooner or later. Here are our top tips for getting the most out of them, and how to make a great impression!

The Commercial Development Scheme is a programme for future lawyers, either with or without training contracts, who are looking to hone their commercial skills before they start their legal careers.

If you're isolating, recovering or relaxing this winter, Flex Legal is here to help. We’ve rounded up our top 10 legal films and TV series to keep you entertained, motivated and inspired.

Nathalie came to Flex Legal keen to find a role which would allow her to travel and work remotely. After two weeks on our platform, we found her the perfect position as a Commercial Lawyer at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. We chatted to Nathalie to hear about her experience of working as an interim lawyer.

We're delighted to announce that our POTM for November 21 is the wonderful Sarah Bamidele! Sarah has excelled during numerous Flex placements at Centrica, McEvedys and Allen & Overy. Hear all about her experience in this blog post.

Book a place at December's Junior Lawyer Lunch, where Rory Oake, Consultant at Ardea International, will deliver a talk on everything Junior Lawyers should know about modern slavery - including how they can identify and combat it.

In this episode Louise is joined by Simranjeet Kaur Mann, Trainee Solicitor at Womble Bond Dickinson, and legal influencer/educator, who discusses her legal journey so far, why the next generation of legal professionals are a breath of fresh air, and even a super exciting announcement exclusive to Humans of Law!

Book a place at November's Junior Lawyer Lunch, where Christopher Tart-Roberts, Head of Lawtech at Macfarlanes, will talk through what tech & key skills junior lawyers should have a grasp on to accelerate their career and become a valuable team member.

How can you tell if a company is truly environmentally and socially responsible from the outside? We addressed this in our latest Virtual Lunch, with Victoria Ferguson, GC at MMC Ventures, and Sung-Hyui Park, Senior Associate at Bates Wells.

Runnymede Law is a specialist law firm providing affordable dispute resolution and claims handling services to insurers and other clients. Read all about how we've responded to their quick turnarounds and helped to ease their busy workload.

Reflective learning? That’s just a waste of time, right? Wrong! It’s very easy to get caught up in the working world, so people rarely stop to think about what they’ve learned and achieved. This blog article explores what reflective learning actually is, and its personal and professional benefits.

Law firms aren't just places where the rule of law is argued for, they are also businesses. Each law firm needs to operate profitably, and everyone in the firm plays their part in this. Learn how law firms work as a business here!

Our Paralegal of the Month for August is Kevin! A trilingual LPC graduate, Kevin has smashed it out of the park on his long-standing Flex placement with Dentons. Hear all about his experience of using Flex in this short video.

Gowling WLG is an international law firm with over 1,500 legal professionals across 19 different cities.  Flex Legal first began helping Gowling WLG back in 2017 when they faced unprecedented peaks of work due to multiple large cases heading to Court and staff maternity leave.

In episode 8 of Humans of Law, Mary rounds off Series 1 by talking to Elizabeth Rimmer, CEO of LawCare.

Flex Legal have had the absolute pleasure of working with Lenovo and providing them with a number of interim paralegals. Read this case study and learn what Sarah Rosser, Director and GC at Lenovo, thinks about Flex Legal's services.

Our sixth episode of Humans of Law sees Mary talk with Barry Matthews, Founder of the Social Mobility Business Partnership.

The fifth episode of Humans of Law sees Louise talk with the incomparable Helen Lowe, Head of Legal Operations at easyJet.

The third episode of Humans of Law sees Louise talk with Keily Blair, Head of Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation London at Orrick.

In our first episode of the Humans of Law podcast, Louise talks with Alex Smith - Global RAVN Product Lead at iManage.

Our May 2021 Paralegal of the Month is the astonishing Rhiana Assi! Rhiana is a Commercial and IP Paralegal who works through Flex, and recently underwent an immensely complex and varied placement with one of our clients. Watch what she has to say in this short video!

Supervisors are now able to confirm Qualifying Work Experience on the Flex legal Journal! The service offers supervisors or COLPs the means to easily fulfil their responsibilities to SQE hopefuls.

Congratulations to our April 2021 Paralegal of the Month, Julia! We were fortunate enough to have Julia sign up to work through Flex in January, and were quickly able to get her working on a fantastic placement with Trustpilot. Read what she has to say here!

What is a legal technologist? What do they do? How can you become one? We asked the Manchester Legal Hackers group your questions, so read what they had to say!

The Flex platform is designed to pair the right paralegals to the right opportunities. This is exactly what happened with Armand Derri and Schroders. Read more about how this pairing happened here!

Simon Clegg is a broadly experienced commercial lawyer who has been working through Flex since late 2019. We put some questions to our most recent LOTM to find out a little more about his life, his career, and his interim lawyer work.

Networking is critically important part of any professional journey. The sooner you start doing it, the better. This post explores how to successfully network and make valuable contacts in the age of remote working.

Josephine joined Flex last year, and has since gone on to receive sensational feedback from her long-standing placement at Vodafone! We're incredibly pleased with the energy she's been able to bring to the placement and our platform.

Read Massimiliano's breakdown of paralegal working through Flex, how he landed a job with Freshfields following a Flex placement, and even some advice for those looking to break into legal roles themselves!

The SQE is here, and it means big changes to the solicitor qualification process. We've broken down the main points about the SQE, Qualifying Work Experience, and the Professional Development Record. Learn all about them here!

Are you looking to apply for training contracts? This guide takes some of the hard work out of the equation, and breaks down the different types of law firms out there!

Modern Slavery is a more prevalent problem than we in the UK legal industry might initially think. There are more slaves in the world today than there have ever been. This post explores why this problem is so prevalent, and what we can do about it.

George Devine recently secured his Training Contract with Addleshaw Goddard, which he obtained off the back of a paralegal placement through Flex Legal. In this continuation of our Training Contract series, George shares his experiences to date, and offers some great insights on securing a Training Contract.

We put some of YOUR burning questions about law firm assessment centres to two brilliant legal professionals - Jess Heap, ofLatham & Watkins LLP, and Chloe Lloyd of Gowling WLG. Read what they had to say!

Conexus Law are a specialist advisory firm founded by Ed Cooke. They are closely aligned with the values of Flex Legal, who have helped Conexus Law find two permanent hires this year. This has helped them meet their client's needs and provide innovative solutions.

We are delighted to crown Louie Buckland as our Paralegal of the Month for October 2020.

In this third and final part of the series, we sit down with Alex Wooley, 4 year PQE qualified solicitor at Farrer & Co, to understand his thoughts and ambitions on Legal Tech.

Both times I worked with F-LEX, I was impressed by F-LEX’s level of communication, the calibre of the clients for which they select candidates, and the support and directness along the way.

We are thrilled to announce that Tyler Felix, a Flexer who onboarded with us in 2018, has accepted a training contract at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner commencing September 2021! Tyler has been a fantastic ambassador for Flex Legal over the years and is also September’s Paralegal of the Month. How timely! We are delighted to have played a small role in Tyler’s success and wanted to share her journey with you.

Flex Legal and Grosvenor Law have been working together since February 2019. Flex Legal has provided paralegals to Grosvenor Law for 3-6 month fixed term contracts when Grosvenor Law has been particularly busy.

This is the first of a three part series examining legal technology and how junior lawyers are driving innovation. Harry spoke to three of The Legal Technologists’s top 10 most innovative junior lawyers to ask them about their journey, experiences and advice they would give.

In 2016, the oil and gas industry crashed, and by the time we entered 2017, my employer advised that she was closing the office and needed me to work remotely. I was elated. No more 40 minute drives each way to complete work that could be done at home!

On our latest GC call we were delighted to welcome Will Long, Client Partnership Director at Alacrity, who shared some valuable insights into how general counsel can get more value out of their external law firms. For Will, three key areas must be considered when trying to drive valuable relationships between the two: controlling costs; transparency; and evolving relationships through data.

In the continuation of our Virtual Lunch Series, hosted by Sophie Gould, Head of Learning & Development at F-LEX, we talked about being comfortable talking about difference.

My particular leap of faith to head off into the unknown may not be possible for everyone, but I can highly recommend taking a chance on flexible working as a lawyer. The benefits are many for the flexible worker, and for clients needing some extra help without having to take on an employee and all that this brings in terms of extra costs and legal responsibility, using the highly professional team at F-LEX brings many advantages too.

We were pleased to welcome an excellent panel of speakers to join last week’s GC call in collaboration with LexisNexis and Crafty Counsel, including Dinesh Jadav, Director of Legal Operations at Royal Mail; Manu Kanwar, Co-founder of LexSolutions; and Madeleine Graham, Head of Product Design at LexisNexis. The discussion continued to build on the theme of legal innovation within the in-house community, with the panel sharing excellent insights from their own experiences.

Securing a training contract can be a long and difficult process, however determination pays off…and we have proof! We recently caught up with Umar Jamil, future trainee at Macfarlanes LLP, to hear about his training contract journey and how F-LEX helped him along the way.

This week’s Virtual Lunch for paralegals and junior lawyers, in collaboration with LexisNexis UK and Crafty Counsel, saw Iain Larkin and Sandra Martins from Radius Law cover important employment law topics that you should know.

Radius Law’s Sandra Martins shared important insights on the arrangements, risks and legalities of home working that legal teams should consider as we begin to come out of the other side of the pandemic.

These unprecedented times have thrown up challenge after challenge. With the government starting to ease restrictions, for many law firms the next challenge is how to get the office prepped for the return of their staff. I was able to catch up with Nigel Coates, Deputy Senior Partner at Russell-Cooke to get his thoughts of life in lockdown and the steps that his firm are taking to prepare the office for life after lockdown.

At F-LEX, one of our values is positivity so with this in mind, we asked the F-LEX team:What have you loved during lockdown?What have you learnt during lockdown?What will you do differently after lockdown?

Flex Legal has been supporting Dentons LLP, the world’s largest law firm by headcount since 2018. We caught up with Ben, Denton’s resourcing manager, to learn why flexible resourcing is important and how the partnership with Flex Legal has worked.

These sessions connect paralegals, trainees and junior lawyers, and encourage top tips, resources and camaraderie to be shared in the legal community during these challenging times.

flexy (not to be confused with F-LEX) was recommended to speak to F-LEX as they needed some help with reviewing 50-100 contracts of various subscription providers.

This morning Sophie Gould, Head of Learning and Development at F-LEX, chaired a fantastic virtual discussion in collaboration with LexisNexis UK and Radius Law between in-house counsels on the prominent issues surrounding COVID-19 and the legal industry.

With most of the U.K. encouraged to work from home during this pandemic, teams have been separated and isolated like never before. While many of us get used to multiway video calls and our new home offices, some F-lexers and Clients have been practicing this way of working for a while. We catch up with Louise Wolfson, Legal Counsel at Gunnercooke and Kemi Feyisetan, F-lex Paralegal to learn more…

With the outbreak of Coronavirus spreading at a rather alarming rate, the world’s economy is starting to feel the effects as governments take action, impacting on global supply chains and other commercial relationships. Stocks have fallen continuously, in what has been the worst week of trading since the 2008 crisis. However, from a legal perspective it has seen a rise in the use of an oft forgotten but at present vital boilerplate clause, the force majeure.

New year, new you, new Training Contract.  In this article I go over 5 of the most common questions we receive.  

Sophie Gould – Head of learning and development at F-lex spoke to Nir to get his insights into how a good lawyer behaves and how the legal profession needs to change and adapt to survive.

Round up of F-lex team news and views for December 2019

Quite rightly discussions about our fragile planet and environment are at the forefront of social policy. As individuals, companies and governments cotton on to the overwhelming severity of the situation, Harry sat down with Fiona Nicholls, Gowling’s Head of Environment, to discuss their Planet + initiative.

In this article one of our Manchester team Sam tell us all about her time in China. She discusses the merits of working abroad and the potential impact that an experience like that can have on your training contract applications and future career.

This month we were able to sit down with Chris White Founder of the UK’s leading legal diversity platform, Aspiring Solicitors to tackle the topic of Diversity. In a month where we have celebrated difference and inclusivity we wanted to explore a topic that is hot on the lips of every law firm in town! We asked Chris some quick fire questions on the topic.

We have really exciting news for all our Flexers that are looking for a career at the bar. We have a brand new podcast just for you.

In London, Bristol and Leeds, Mary and Harry represented F-LEX at the LPM Conferences. We would firstly like to say a huge thank you to the team at LPM for inviting us on to the panel. Over the course of the three panel discussions we covered a variety of topics related to the future workforce. Below are our reflections on what we feel are the biggest takeaway points.

We sat down with Hashim, Marija and Naoise, three of our wonderful Bookings Team, to talk through their hints and tips for the application process! All three have secured training contracts and have been through the process from start to finish with many failed attempts between them. Here is what they’ve learnt and want to pass on to you.

I am Julie Brannan and I’m the Director of training and Education at the SRA and I am the person who is leading the introduction of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE).

As 2018 began to wind down and at F-LEX we looked ahead to the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) London Institute in January 2019, F-LEX co-founder and CEO, Mary Bonsor, met Sarah Barrett-Vane, Legal Operations specialist and Consultant from SBV Consulting to discuss all things Legal Operations, how the legal market is changing and what lawyers of the future can do to ensure they move with the change.

I knew a friend who told his interviewers he “always wanted to be a lawyer.” His interviewers cut him off. “Always?” they asked. “But you weren’t always on this planet!” He stuttered. Got agitated. Went red. His palms got sweaty. It was as though every second lasted a hundred seconds longer. He just couldn’t wait for it all to be over.

Start with your contact details, the subject that you have studied and then your academic results.

We look for people who can demonstrate they are: fast learners, are interested in our clients and the legal industry, have managed some interesting projects (either at work or at uni) and have experience of an office environment - not necessarily in a law firm, though.

For the first interview, we thought we would ask the Founder of F-LEX, Mary Bonsor, 3 questions about how she set up F-LEX.

When the University of York's complaints team found themselves staring down an insurmountable backlog, they urgently needed support. Fortunately, Flex paralegals were drafted in and helped them meet their problems head on. Read how it all went down!

Sometimes legal professionals go the full Flex distance! Saad Ali is one such individual, who excellent on multiple paralegal placements via Flex before being accepted into the ranks of Flex Trainee. Read his story!

In the legal workplace, inclusion is everything. Greater inclusion directly results in increased productivity, wellbeing, and staff retention. Our new report outlines practical steps to make your legal workplace more inclusive and effective.

Flex Trainee is our SQE qualification programme, designed to help diverse, talented aspiring lawyers from socially mobile backgrounds get into the industry. We had a chat with Sarah Gormley, Head of General Counsel Operational Excellence at Phoenix Group, to hear about their experience of the scheme so far.

It’s no secret that the legal industry has a long way to go when it comes to managing the health and wellbeing of its legal professionals. As a paralegal new to the industry, it’s important to maintain a healthy workflow without feeling fatigue and burnout, but how can you achieve such a serene state of mind?

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic was a huge catalyst for change. Two years later and hybrid working has become an established part of the ‘new normal’. In our latest virtual lunch event, we explored how junior lawyers can best navigate this new way of working. Take a read for our top takeaways.

Legal ops is the latest buzz word on every lawyers' lips, but what does it actually mean? And why is it so important? We were lucky enough to recently be joined by Beejal Patel, Legal Systems Manager at Diageo, at our latest Junior Lawyer Lunch. Take a read of this blog summary to learn all about the rise in legal ops!

Our Paralegal Spotlight is being cast in the direction of the fantastic Roman Tokaryk! Roman joined the platform late last year, and has since made waves on his lengthy placement with Williams Advanced Engineering. Watch Roman talk about his Flex experience!

We're delighted to announce that the latest Flex paralegal we'd like to place a spotlight on is the wonderful Jack Enright, who has made such an incredible impression during his long-standing litigation placement at Provenio that he's now secured a permanent role there. Read this blog to hear all about his experience of using Flex!

Daniele was the first ever interim lawyer we on-boarded onto the Flex platform. Since then, he's thrived on two long-term placements and made such an incredible impact with our clients throughout. Take a read to see what he has to say about working as an interim lawyer through Flex!

For the last instalment of our Junior Lawyer Lunches, we were joined by the notorious Peter Watson, CEO of Watson's Daily. Here are his top tips on how to effectively improve and hone your commercial awareness.

We're casting our Paralegal Spotlight on the wonderful Adilla Jamaludin! Adilla has been on the Flex platform since January this year, and was quickly snatched up for a Family Law placement. Learn more about Adilla's Flex journey by watching her spotlight video!

Document review is a bread and butter task within the paralegal world. As a legal professional, the importance of having a good grasp of document review cannot be overstated. Read our comprehensive guide to paralegal-level document review here!

Every paralegal who applies to Flex Legal needs to complete an onboarding interview. This post covers what to expect from the interview itself, as well as what you should take care of before and after the interview.

Oscar Davies is a practicing barrister at Lamb Chambers, and was the first barrister in the UK to publicly identify as non-binary. Oscar and Louise have a thought-provoking discussion about the Bar, why legal TV shows aren't representative, and diversity within the law.

There's a lot of theories about how to best be commercial as a lawyer, but no uniform agreement. In this Junior Lawyer Lunch follow-up blog post, we cover four of the best theories on how to drive positive commercial outcomes for your organisation.

Welcome to our first ever weekly commercial news roundup. Designed for busy aspiring or qualified lawyers who want to quickly get up to speed with all the latest commercial headlines, without having to search far and wide across a myriad of sources!

With 'blame culture', unreasonable pressure and impossible deadlines being seen across the legal industry, change is needed now more than ever. But what changes need to be made? For the latest instalment of our Junior Lawyer Lunches we tried to answer this very question.

For International Women's Day 2022, we had a chat with some of the fabulous female interim lawyers on our platform to ask them why law, why interim and what advice they'd give to any aspiring female legal professionals who wish to progress in the industry.

We're delighted to announce that the latest Flex paralegal we'd like to place a spotlight on is the wonderful Shannon Grant! Shannon has made such an incredible impression during her placement with DWF, that she has now transferred permanently to the client. We had a chat with Shannon to hear all about her experience of using Flex.

Dan Kayne is Founder of the O Shaped Lawyer, and a GC at Network Rail. In this episode of the podcast, he talks with Louise Anderson about how and why he wants to make the legal industry more human-centric.

Emerald Publishing is one of the world's leading digital-first publishers. Find out how we've provided them with both mid-level and senior interim commercial lawyers to support their in-house legal team and ease their workload.

LinkedIn is now synonymous with professional life in the legal industry. If you optimise your profile well, you can use it to attract new opportunities, roles, and connections without needing to search for them. Here's our top tips for LinkedIn Lawyers!

Book a place at February's Junior Lawyer Lunch Event. This is a continuation of our Junior Lawyer Virtual Lunches, which offer industry insights, professional tips and networking opportunities.

Legal job interviews are terrifying affairs riddled with intimidating questions. But they don't have to be! Here's our comprehensive guide on giving good answers in legal job interviews.

After overcoming the challenges of 2020, Flex Legal has come back with a bang in 2021. From winning prestigious awards, to launching a brand new social mobility training scheme, it’s been a big year for the team at Flex HQ, so we wanted to take a moment to look back on our fave highlights from the year.

Modern Slavery - it's everywhere and probably closer than you think. Everyone in the legal community understands the importance of human rights - but do we know about human rights abuses happening right under our noses?

We're thrilled to have hosted our first ever northern in-house event earlier this month, with talks on the flexible approach to new talent, key skills to succeed, and mental health & wellbeing in law. Read this blog post to find out more about our brand new northern community!