What led you to join Elevate Flexible Resourcing as a legal secondee?
Ironically, it was Elevate that led me to join Elevate. They reached out to me about several secondment roles after reviewing my LinkedIn profile and determining that my professional experience was a good fit. One of the roles – my current assignment – was a fantastic opportunity: a secondment through a top-tier law firm to work for the legal and governance department of a leading global natural resources company. It required immediate, full-time availability. After a round of interviews with the client, I received an offer and began the secondment.
What do you like most about working as a flexible lawyer for Elevate?
What I enjoy most about my work with Elevate is the opportunity to leverage my experience and contribute while working on interesting matters for clients. In my secondments before working with Elevate, the roles were essentially one-offs. In contrast, Elevate’s flexible positions cover a range of roles and practice areas, more than is typical in firm and in-house positions. Moreover, working at a firm or as an in-house attorney often involves spending time on marketing and business development or supervising outside counsel. As a flexible lawyer with Elevate, I get to focus on lawyering.
What have been the highlights of your current secondments?
The highlight thus far, without a doubt, has been working with the client team on cutting-edge transformational work in the ethics and governance space. Although this drew on my experience with commercial law, it represented a pivot that has allowed me to develop new skills while building relationships in a large business in an industry that was new to me.
What are the critical aspects of being a secondee?
To be a good secondee, you must be able to hit the ground running – to rapidly build good relationships with your new colleagues’ knowledge and quickly familiarise yourself with the client and its business, structure, operations, and culture. If you excel at those things, you should expect to become an integral part of the client’s team. The more value you add, and the sooner you add it, the more likely the secondment will continue longer than initially expected.
How has working with Elevate enabled you to thrive as a legal secondee?
Elevate’s operational and administrative support team is excellent. The work they do enables me to focus entirely on servicing the client. Plus, it makes my work more enjoyable. I don’t have to worry about spending time marketing myself, dealing with invoice preparation, or other administrative chores that so many of my colleagues in private practice must complete every day.
What aspects of being a secondee do you find most interesting?
I like the experience of joining a team and adding value immediately. I also like how secondments allow me to get insight into a company and its industry across multiple clients. Plus, I get to use my existing capabilities whilst learning new skills and acquiring new types of expertise.
To anyone thinking about becoming a secondee, what advice do you have?
Secondments are a great fit if you are open to new work environments, like working as part of a team and enjoy building strong working relationships with people at all levels of an organisation. If you are comfortable with change and variety, you are a good match for secondments. Also, because secondment opportunities frequently arise on very short notice, keep your social media profile up-to-date and make it compelling, and line up referees before you need them! Being ready to go from the outset helps demonstrate you understand what a secondment involves.