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PwC Selling Temporary In-House Lawyers to Businesses

By George Khoury, Esq. on October 27, 2017 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

We might all know that lawyering is secretly a service industry job. In the business world, lawyers are all too often reminded of this fact. And while our fragile egos tend to be okay with being service industry employees thanks to the high price tag associated with legal services, being commoditized might make some lawyers cringe.

Unfortunately for those business lawyers that cringe at the thought of being a commodity, the group of corporate overlords at PricewaterhouseCoopers are leading the charge to make temporary in house legal services easier to access for companies with budgets that range from large to larger.

PwC Branded Temporary Contract Attorneys

PwC's new offering is appropriately called Flexible Legal Resources. The basic idea is to provide vetted commercial, compliance, and business attorneys to other businesses and organizations on an as-needed basis. Think Uber but with business lawyers, and without the app, and with much better vetting for the "contractors."

Basically, PwC is trying to be a one stop shop for businesses that need in house legal help. Flexible Legal Resources offers businesses the flexibility of using one temporary contract attorney, or one hundred, as needs change. Businesses benefit by not having to hire a temporary in house team which they'd only have to fire, or downsize, after a few months.

A Trustworthy Platform for Contract Attorneys

While legal staffing is nothing new, PwC entering the fray is rather significant. Having a firm with a reputation for quality behind the Flexible Legal Resources platform distinguishes the service due to the quality of screening required to maintain that reputation. After all, this is Price WaterhouseCoopers we're talking about, not www.SomeRandomTechCompanyName.com.

While the services being offered right now are limited to the financial services sector, PwC expects to expand to nearly all aspects of corporate law as the number of qualified contractors on their platform continues to grow. However, as the PwC contract attorney bench continues to grow, it could put pressure on independent contract attorneys and small to medium sized firms to either adapt or get left behind.

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