How Flex Legal helped Aston University fill a brand new role

Aston University is a lively and welcoming campus-based university situated in the centre of Birmingham. Founded in 1895 and a university since 1966, they put their beneficiaries at the heart of everything they do. In November 2020, the University was awarded the Guardian’s University of the Year accolade because of its performance related to graduate employability, student retention, accessibility and sustainability. Shortlisted for this year’s prestigious Times Higher Education University of the Year award (2021), Aston University also won the THE’s 2020 Outstanding Entrepreneurial University award in recognition of its support for student entrepreneurship, small businesses and the West Midlands economy.

Victoria Mee, General Counsel at Aston University, first reached out to Flex Legal in February 2020 on the back of hearing about the great work we do during the Alternative In-house Technology Summit. After losing a member of her team in the previous year, Victoria was keen to review her operations model and develop a new, flexible approach of delivering legal services to the University, without simply replacing them with another like-for-like permanent hire.

With Flex Legal fresh in her mind, Victoria came to us for paralegal assistance with a data subject access request (DSAR). Following this, in November 2020, Aston University also had an urgent requirement for a paralegal to assist with a Brexit-related repapering exercise, with a need for someone with knowledge of GDPR and who could get the job done quickly and efficiently. We were quick to fill both roles, allowing the University to focus on their core legal services while we supported this specialist, overflow workload.

This year, Aston University was looking for a remote lawyer to fill a new role within the organisation, ideally with a disputes background. With a need to have the role filled as soon as possible by an adaptable and perceptive candidate, Flex Legal were on hand to help, and we quickly placed a solicitor with five years’ PQE and specialist experience in human rights and litigation. The University was really impressed with the candidate we provided, and they were a perfect fit for the role and organisation as a whole.

Most recently, we’ve supported Aston University in its urgent search for a paralegal to assist with amending agreements for data protection purposes. Again, we filled the role as quickly as possible, allowing Victoria and her team to focus on their core business while our candidate supported this unexpected peak in work.

It’s been great working with Aston University and we’re so happy to have found suitable candidates who have really shone during their placements. We pride ourselves on fulfilling client requests as efficiently and effectively as possible, and it’s great to receive such positive feedback on the service we provide at Flex Legal.

Mary Bonsor, CEO at Flex Legal, said: “We’re really happy to have worked closely with Aston University over the last couple of years and to have supported them in their move to a flexible working model. We hope to continue to fulfil any request they may have from our pool of talented candidates.”

Additional Resources:

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• Kraft Heinz Case Study - read all about how we have helped Kraft Heinz to hire flexible, quality candidates during peak workloads and meet their internal targets.