More Lawyers, More Flexibility, More Work: The Future of Legal Talent
An Interview with Basha Rubin, CEO & Co-Founder at Priori Legal
Let's say you're a new company or a company looking for legal talent in a new area. How do you assess that talent and make sure they’re the right fit for the job? What are some frameworks or tips people can use?
Basha Rubin: I think that’s a great question, and it’s particularly interesting within the legal industry. At Priori, one of the things we’ve noticed is that most in-house teams—though not all—don’t have a holistic talent strategy. They don’t always think about the internal talent and capabilities they already have, their external law firms, ALSPs, new law providers, and technologies as part of one coherent spectrum.
Instead, they often make decisions in silos. For example, the owner of the in-house legal budget might not be the same as the owner of the external legal budget, leading to decisions that are out of sync.
One helpful framework our VP of Client Development has been using recently is "Build, Buy, Borrow." It’s pretty basic, but applied to legal talent, it means thinking about what capacity you can build internally, what you should be buying from expensive outside counsel, and what talent you should be borrowing from a flexible provider or legal marketplace like Priori.
Efficiency seems to be the theme of the moment - expecting the same outputs while spending less. So, how can legal departments scale their impact without scaling costs, and how does the staffing model play into that?
Basha: The biggest driver of flexible legal talent in recent years has been uncertainty—geopolitical, economic, and otherwise. Starting perhaps with COVID, in-house teams began realizing they couldn’t predict what the next year or five years would look like.
So instead of scaling internal headcount, they partnered with flexible talent providers to get the expertise they needed on demand for as long as they needed it. This allows them to ramp up or down painlessly as circumstances change. It’s a cost-effective way to meet their needs without relying on extraordinarily expensive outside counsel or committing to permanent hires who might not be needed a year or two down the line.
Priori recently launched an RFP product. How does that fit into the broader vision, and where are you going from here?
Our headline vision is to help in-house teams find the right lawyers at the right price for any project. We started with our talent marketplace, which includes both our flexible talent offering and a global law firm marketplace. Then we added software to help manage existing trusted outside counsel relationships.
We’ve had panel management for a couple of years, and we recently launched RFP functionality. Our clients now use us across both software and talent offerings to make every outside counsel or hiring decision with as much data and information as possible.
What’s one thing the most innovative or effective legal departments are doing right now that you think others should adopt?
I’ve been interviewing in-house teams about how they’re using RFPs, and one trend I’ve noticed, especially in large companies, is setting RFP requirements for projects that meet certain cost or risk thresholds.
This process has had a major impact—not just on cost but also on satisfaction with the services received. When done right, it’s been a game changer for those teams.
Do you think that’s driven by just having a process at all, or does the RFP process itself really change the outcome?
I think it’s both. Legal is a trust- and relationship-based business, and it’s easy to default to someone you’ve worked with before. But without comparing options, you might miss out on better pricing or more relevant expertise.
For example, in patent litigation, there could be someone you didn’t initially consider who has worked on a very similar case or has highly specialized knowledge. By using our products, you can ensure you’re making the best decision with the right options, price, and strategy every time.
How do you think the market for legal talent will evolve over the next five years?
There’s been a lot of talk about AI ending the need for lawyers, but I think the opposite will happen. By lowering the barriers to entry for litigation and speeding up business processes, there’s going to be more work for lawyers than ever before.
Mundane and repetitive tasks will be handled better by AI, which is great for the profession as it removes tedium. But my prediction is: more lawyers, more work for lawyers.
More lawyers, more litigation—great for lawyers, scary for everyone else!
True! Anyone can click a button to file a complaint, but someone has to respond to it.
At what point does the system change to make that harder?
It’ll have to happen eventually, but change in legal systems is slow. It’s not something that flips overnight.
An Interview with Basha Rubin, CEO & Co-Founder at Priori Legal
Let's say you're a new company or a company looking for legal talent in a new area. How do you assess that talent and make sure they’re the right fit for the job? What are some frameworks or tips people can use?
Basha Rubin: I think that’s a great question, and it’s particularly interesting within the legal industry. At Priori, one of the things we’ve noticed is that most in-house teams—though not all—don’t have a holistic talent strategy. They don’t always think about the internal talent and capabilities they already have, their external law firms, ALSPs, new law providers, and technologies as part of one coherent spectrum.
Instead, they often make decisions in silos. For example, the owner of the in-house legal budget might not be the same as the owner of the external legal budget, leading to decisions that are out of sync.
One helpful framework our VP of Client Development has been using recently is "Build, Buy, Borrow." It’s pretty basic, but applied to legal talent, it means thinking about what capacity you can build internally, what you should be buying from expensive outside counsel, and what talent you should be borrowing from a flexible provider or legal marketplace like Priori.
Efficiency seems to be the theme of the moment - expecting the same outputs while spending less. So, how can legal departments scale their impact without scaling costs, and how does the staffing model play into that?
Basha: The biggest driver of flexible legal talent in recent years has been uncertainty—geopolitical, economic, and otherwise. Starting perhaps with COVID, in-house teams began realizing they couldn’t predict what the next year or five years would look like.
So instead of scaling internal headcount, they partnered with flexible talent providers to get the expertise they needed on demand for as long as they needed it. This allows them to ramp up or down painlessly as circumstances change. It’s a cost-effective way to meet their needs without relying on extraordinarily expensive outside counsel or committing to permanent hires who might not be needed a year or two down the line.
Priori recently launched an RFP product. How does that fit into the broader vision, and where are you going from here?
Our headline vision is to help in-house teams find the right lawyers at the right price for any project. We started with our talent marketplace, which includes both our flexible talent offering and a global law firm marketplace. Then we added software to help manage existing trusted outside counsel relationships.
We’ve had panel management for a couple of years, and we recently launched RFP functionality. Our clients now use us across both software and talent offerings to make every outside counsel or hiring decision with as much data and information as possible.
What’s one thing the most innovative or effective legal departments are doing right now that you think others should adopt?
I’ve been interviewing in-house teams about how they’re using RFPs, and one trend I’ve noticed, especially in large companies, is setting RFP requirements for projects that meet certain cost or risk thresholds.
This process has had a major impact—not just on cost but also on satisfaction with the services received. When done right, it’s been a game changer for those teams.
Do you think that’s driven by just having a process at all, or does the RFP process itself really change the outcome?
I think it’s both. Legal is a trust- and relationship-based business, and it’s easy to default to someone you’ve worked with before. But without comparing options, you might miss out on better pricing or more relevant expertise.
For example, in patent litigation, there could be someone you didn’t initially consider who has worked on a very similar case or has highly specialized knowledge. By using our products, you can ensure you’re making the best decision with the right options, price, and strategy every time.
How do you think the market for legal talent will evolve over the next five years?
There’s been a lot of talk about AI ending the need for lawyers, but I think the opposite will happen. By lowering the barriers to entry for litigation and speeding up business processes, there’s going to be more work for lawyers than ever before.
Mundane and repetitive tasks will be handled better by AI, which is great for the profession as it removes tedium. But my prediction is: more lawyers, more work for lawyers.
More lawyers, more litigation—great for lawyers, scary for everyone else!
True! Anyone can click a button to file a complaint, but someone has to respond to it.
At what point does the system change to make that harder?
It’ll have to happen eventually, but change in legal systems is slow. It’s not something that flips overnight.
