Navigating the Shifting Legal Hiring Landscape in 2024

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to The Legal Report from Robert Half, where industry leading experts discuss current hiring and practice management issues impacting the legal profession. Robert Half is a premier provider of talent solutions for the legal field. The Legal Report from Robert Half is here on the Legal Talk Network.

Jamy Sullivan:

Hello everyone and welcome. I’m Jamy Sullivan, executive director of the Legal Practice Group for Robert Half and the host of our program. I would like to welcome back to our program, Chad Volkert, global Head of Legal Consulting at Protiviti. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chad, he brings more than 24 years of legal optimization and executive management experience to his clients in the US and around the world. He focuses on providing the C-suite in-house counsel and law firm leadership expertise in the areas of legal department transformation, hiring and retaining talent, litigation and eDiscovery contract management, data privacy, m and a and strategic business solutions. Chad, welcome back to the program. I’m so delighted that you could join us once again to share your insights with our audience.

Chad Volkert:

Well, it’s awesome being with you Jamy. Thank you so much for the invitation. You know, I will always jump at the opportunity to have a great discussion with you and look forward to the various topics that we’re going to be talking about today.

Jamy Sullivan:

Well, it’s definitely been too long, but I do know that we have a great program for our listeners today. In this episode, Chad and I are going to discuss the latest insights from Robert Half’s biannual demand for skilled talent report, as well as Protiviti top risk survey. We’ll be hitting topics such as the role of contract professionals, the impact of AI on the workforce, strategies for retaining top talent in a competitive market, and much more. Chad, once again, glad to have you back on the program to share your expertise. And as we dive in, I wanted to share a couple of key statistics from our recent demand for skilled talent report in the second half of 2024. So we found that 50% of law firms and legal departments will be hiring for new permanent roles, and 41% will be hiring for vacated permanent roles and an astonishing 91% face challenges finding skilled talent in the current market landscape, 53% plan to hire more contract professionals and some of those areas that they most likely will need contract talent have been in the general and legal administrative area as well as law firm administration, legal specialists, litigation support and e-discovery, as well as general legal research and analysis.

So Chad, let’s transition from the contract professional side to consulting and have you talk about how can consultants support ongoing hiring demands?

Chad Volkert:

Absolutely. Jamy first and foremost, I mean amazing stats that you provided regarding this continued demand for top talent, not only within the legal field, but I also know across all the specialized hiring areas that Robert Half has deep expertise in recruiting and staffing, which aligns with this demand for consultants that we see a productivity. I certainly will focus on the legal demands within consulting, but again, when you’re thinking about technology, when you’re thinking about financial services, when you’re thinking about marketing and digital and risk and compliance, all of these areas continue to be driving demand in hiring and bringing subject matter expertise and consultants to the table. We continue to see that probably around the areas that you’re talking about Jamy within legal because you simply can’t find that expertise in either short, mid, or long-term bursts as much as you would like in a full-time hiring capacity or may not need it in a full-time hiring capacity.

That’s one of the driving factors of why Protiviti iss legal consulting business continues to grow around the world and in the US providing subject matter expertise in key areas like the ones that you mentioned. Litigation continues to be driving a lot of growth, that investigative stage, that forensic stage, and then onto full fledged litigation driving demand, also in and around how companies are dealing with contracts, the volume of contracts, NDAs, leases that are permeating their organizations. Also cyber and data privacy, having expertise and deep expertise in that area with risk and compliance as well continue to be factors for companies to look outside of their traditional hiring plans to bring in trusted advisors and consultants that can work on a per project basis or an hourly basis to fill gaps, provide advisory services, manage engagements for the client, and look at ways to add additional expertise to the companies.

Jamy Sullivan:

Well, Chad, that’s quite a lengthy list of different directions that SE or consultants can go and obviously has evolved since you and I started our legal career. So it is an exciting time to see how legal compliance, risk contracts, all of that comes into under the umbrella, if you will, of legal and how contract professionals and consultants can fill those gaps, as you mentioned.

Chad Volkert:

Absolutely, and I think companies looking Jamy to fill gaps need to look at a full type of solution. Should they be hiring full-time? Should they be bringing in a contractor and or I should say, should they be looking at a consulting subject matter expert who can come in and provide that expertise either as a stopgap or an ongoing advisory service? And I think the companies that are really growing aggressively, innovating, optimizing and creating efficiencies are using a blended model for experts that you can provide Jamy on the full-time or the contract talent as well as those 5, 10, 15, 20 year consultants that are bringing just a degree of credibility and expertise to the table. And that blended solution is really unique in the marketplace. It’s one that’s driving innovation for companies and allowing companies to grow, reduce risk, create efficiencies, and that’s not going away. That’s only going to continue to accelerate, especially in this world now post covid of more virtual and not as much in-person. And you know what? You can draw on talent, as you and I have talked about before, Jamy, it’s really unique. Five years ago, everybody had to work in the city that they were trying to fill the gap for or had to jump on a plane to fly. Now you can tap into not only contractors, but also global consultants who can bring their expertise virtually instantaneously to a corporation or a law firm.

Jamy Sullivan:

Very well said. Chad and I annunciate, I guess if you will, the blended model, the blended solution, and yes, what Covid has brought us of the remote talent and the remote expertise, it’s definitely not going away. So Chad, let’s dive into Protiviti top risk survey a little bit more. And first and foremost, can you give our listeners a little bit more of a background on the report?

Chad Volkert:

Absolutely. Jamy, this is hard to believe, but our 12th annual top risk survey report, which highlights top of mind issues for board of directors and executives at organizations around the world, and we took a little bit of a different look this year. We said, okay, what’s happening in 2024 and what do we believe will be happening a decade later in 2034? And given the long-term risk landscape that we analyze, two questions really stood at the forefront for leaders. Number one, what steps should we undertake or continue over the near term to ensure our organization is sufficiently agile and resilient to thrive in what we’re calling a decade of disruption? And if your organization is being disrupted, which we know almost all will be, how would we know and when would we know it and how can we evolve from there?

Jamy Sullivan:

Well, Chad, I’ve noticed in the report that the ability to attract, develop, retain top talent as well as manage shifts in labor expectations and address succession challenges is listed as a top risk for this decade of disruption that you mentioned. And we’re certainly seeing this come to light in 2024 already, as we have seen it in our demand for skilled talent report specifically nearly nine in 10 employers are having these hiring challenges of the many challenges listed, some of the most prevalent, were hiring top candidates before competitors do and meeting applicant’s salary expectations both at 48%, also attracting enough experienced applicants. We are hearing that consistently in the market and then finding candidates who align with company culture. Why are we seeing these challenges persist into the future? Chad?

Chad Volkert:

I would just say that there continues to be such a changing landscape within both the corporate world as well as law firms, whether that’s regarding regulatory change, whether that is AI and the implications, and I know we’ll talk a little bit further about that later in our conversation, Jamy, but every day is literally different for organizations around the globe and how to handle cyber threats. That’s a big, big area of recruitment and challenge and how to handle the mass amounts of data that are being accumulated by companies, the use of artificial intelligence, and that’s driving continued demand for talent that quite frankly isn’t out there. I think a little bit about the federal rules of civil procedure when they change for eDiscovery in 2006, I mean prior to that litigation from a third party standpoint, meaning not in-house and not a law firm, was basically a little cottage industry.

Right now, eDiscovery and spend with alternative legal services is north of 25 billion just in North America, or at least predicted to be by the end of this year. If you look back 10 years ago, it was 5 billion. So part of that, and why I use that as an analogy is the constant change in the growth of data and what companies are challenged with drive demand for talent that either didn’t exist prior to 2006 using my eDiscovery example, or you think about Sarbanes Oxley or you think about other changes. Even now with ai, there’s this constant need for individuals to develop their skillset, advance their skillset, and clients and corporations and law firms are looking for talent that isn’t always readily available. And that’s why I go back to using sort of that three-pronged approach. Can you hire full-time? Is that a necessity? Can you bring somebody on a part-time or a contract basis or do you need an ongoing partner from a consulting standpoint to assist you through this type of demand for talent? And I don’t see that going away, Jamy. I mean, you think about again, the changes in regulatory, how companies need to reduce risk. I mean that’s a booming area for us in combination with our risk and compliance practice and our legal consulting practice. And then you layer in our technology consulting with how that intertwines with all of that. And so that’s going to continue to be a driving factor as growth of IT infrastructures and additional threats and how companies mitigate those threats by bringing the right talent to bear.

Jamy Sullivan:

Well, Chad, that is some very interesting and valuable market intel that you have already shared, and I know that we’re going to have a lot more that we’re going to dive into. But first we need to step aside for a quick break.

Announcer:

Is your legal team buried under rising workloads, having trouble containing costs or staying ahead of changing regulations? Robert Half can help. We assist thousands of organizations including Fortune 500 companies and am law law firms offering an alternative to legal staffing and project management. Our flexible talent solutions can be customized and seamlessly integrated into your organization to help alleviate the time or budget management challenges facing your team. Connect with us today at Robert Half dot com.

Jamy Sullivan:

Welcome back to The Legal Report from Robert Half. Before the break, Chad and I were discussing some of the persistent challenges employers are likely to experience over the next decade. Now, Chad, we’re seeing retaining staff as being a top priority and response companies are offering more money and growth opportunities to keep talent. In fact, we have found an astonishing 81% of managers are concerned about retaining top talent. 52% are also increasing pay to retain those same workers, and 46% are expanding professional development opportunities. Now I’d like to transition to ai, which we all know continues to be a hot topic. You can’t go a day without seeing it in the news and in the headlines. According to a recent Robert Half survey, 41% of respondents believe generative AI will actually have a positive impact on their career compared with 14% who worry it could make their skills obsolete. How does this align to what you are seeing at Protiviti and what impact have you seen AI have on the industry as a whole? It’s

Chad Volkert:

A great question, Jamy, and again, really appreciate the stats that you shared. I think some of the earlier stats, the 81%, et cetera, also highly pertain to this growing area of ai, as I like to say. And what we focus on at productivity is our consultants are embracing ai, and I would recommend that anybody looking to receive higher compensation in their field, et cetera, or make a position switch and want a high demand paying job, they need to embrace AI and figure out how to understand and utilize AI and be sort of a master of AI for their skill sets and that may require them taking their skills to a different level, certifications, additional training, et cetera. All of the things that we are very focused on across our 10,000 plus consultants around the globe, this is not a legal consulting question or a risk and compliance or solely a technology consulting question or sort of skillset.

This is a global skillset that we are intensely training all of our consultants no matter what solution or industry they may have expertise in around the globe in order to drive more efficiency and optimization for clients that we’re working with. You think about some of the big areas like AI readiness. Well, in order to have AI readiness at your organization, you need to understand the AI that your organization may already have. You think about the suite at Microsoft, some of the changes in all of the technologies that many companies are already utilizing. So are you trained in that area? Are your employees trained in that area? Some of the busiest work that we’re doing right now is all day trainings, lunch and learns with clients, getting those clients up to speed on the type of AI changes to their own internal technologies or the platforms they’re using, not just the next shiny object that’s out there, Jamy, right?

The next great AI tool that somebody’s selling. But what can AI do for you in your current technology stack and how to use that effectively? Right. I often say technology and the changes in technology stacks, if you’re not staying ahead of that curve, many organizations are using their technology at 30 to 40% capacity. It’s like driving a race car and rush hour traffic. It’s not going very fast. You got to get it out onto the open road. You need to know how to get to that exit to drive at 95 miles an hour. And so that is very, very important and part of our consulting mission with clients. You also think of ways in which AI is being implemented exclusively in the legal field, in and around eDiscovery, in and around contracts, management, et cetera. We’re using a large language model at Protiviti that we developed in-house simply as an enabler for clients to handle contracts more effectively.

Most companies still do not have contracts, lifecycle management tools. Many of those CLMs don’t necessarily have large language model assistance with ai. They have other learning ai, but that’s only as good as the data that you’re putting in. And so we are working with clients to layer in our large language model to their contracts to create efficiencies for them, optimizations for them, streamline workflows, so once they eventually move to ACL M, that transition and implementation will be much faster and much less costly. A starting point for advancing AI skills in your workforce is looking to external partners that can provide relevant knowledge and resources in the areas that you’re looking for, and that isn’t a one size fits all. You need to determine what your organization does and how AI is being used within your field of expertise and then bring the right expertise to bear to allow you to accelerate. But again, going back to your earlier point, if you’re looking to stay ahead of the curve, stay relevant in your career or make yourself even more valuable for your organization, getting additional training and certifications in AI and embracing it, not running from it, but embracing it are key areas for success moving forward.

Jamy Sullivan:

That’s great. Chad. I will have a follow-up question, but I love your commentary. It’s a global skillset and obviously it’s touching many industries and what I find extremely interesting in a risk adverse profession that legal professionals are embracing the possibilities of AI and how it can increase efficiencies and automate tasks and improve overall operations. So we know that will continue to be an evolving topic that we’re going to see, but my follow-up is guideposts. We hear a lot about that, particularly in the legal field, putting in place guideposts on how legal professionals or organizations use ai. From your perspective, from productivity’s perspective, do you have any advice in that space?

Chad Volkert:

Absolutely Jamy, and it’s a great point because organizations, whether it’s a corporate client or a law firm, need to do two things right away. They need to look internally at how their staff and employees are using ai, build a playbook and roll that playbook out for accountability across the organization to protect the organization. That’s a lot of work that we are currently doing with clients, creating those playbooks and frameworks and guidelines for organizations internally. At the same time, we then direct our attention for the C-suite, the board of directors and the other executives at the organization saying, what are your third parties doing around ai? This is a massive threat to an organization. I’ll give you a real life example. I was sitting in a law firm, the partner was talking about how they were using AI to craft a closing argument for a case, and I said to the partner, you mean a private chat AI tool and the look of sort of horror on the partner’s face as they realized that the associates were using a public chat AI tool dumping confidential data into that.

Now, that may be an extreme case, but I would suggest to our listeners not that extreme, right? Just like data security and privacy, we do a lot of work analyzing for corporations what their third party providers are doing to protect the corporate confidential data that is sitting with those third parties and coming in and doing an assessment of their third parties. Same thing with ai. What are your vendors, your third parties stance on ai? What tools are they’re using and what protocols do they have to protect your data? Are they using your contracts to teach their systems something? Have you given them approval? Do you know that? What are they doing with your financials, your invoices, et cetera? All of these questions need to be asked, and we’re doing a lot of solutioning across productivity with clients sitting with the CFO, the gc, the CEO, the cso, the CTO, et cetera, talking about how we can layer in advisory solutions and outsourced and sourced management of that type of assessment for our clients with their third parties. So this is a big area Jamy. I mean, we could talk probably for hours. I could bring other people like Christine Livingston on the call who heads up our global AI practice, who’s far more of an expert than I am, but these are the type of things that you think about the guideposts you mentioned that you need to be thinking about internally as well as externally.

Jamy Sullivan:

Well, Chad, that’s definitely probably opened the eyes to many of our listeners what they need to be thinking about, and it’s the example you gave isn’t the only one that I’ve heard out there as I have talked with clients and potential clients. So a great example to share and even better way to just frame it, that organizations and the combined services such as Robert, Half, and Protiviti can help clients navigate that AI readiness that you mentioned and training and the implementation and what’s to come in the future with ai.

Chad Volkert:

Absolutely. And you think about the need for talent and being able to, again, blend that talent, this AI demand is just going to continue to grow, and I would simply recommend to all of our listeners, do you have trusted partners to be able to lean on, to be able to identify gaps in your AI processes or how to use that more effectively? Embrace that and look for the change and look for the expertise that you can bring to the table to accelerate your organization’s growth through the use of AI and experts around ai.

Jamy Sullivan:

Outstanding. Chad, you have once again provided excellent points and riveting insights for our listeners, but unfortunately we’ve reached the end of our program. Special thanks again to Chad Volkert for joining me today and sharing these valuable tips with all of our listeners. And before we close, Chad, how can our audience contact you and where can they obtain more information?

Chad Volkert:

Well, Jamy first, let me thank you and Robert Half for inviting me to the program. It’s always great to be with you and just continue to wish all the best for you and the teams at Robert Half. Any of our listeners can reach out to me directly at Charles.Volkert, that’s V as in Victor, [email protected]. You can also reach me at any time at www.linkedin.com/in/charlesvolkert and also look at the Protiviti website, protiviti.com for all insights and additional solutions across various industries around the globe. Thanks again, Jamy for having me.

Jamy Sullivan:

Great. Thank you, Chad. And listeners can reach me at Jamy, JAMY dot Sullivan at Robert Half dot com. Thank you once again to our listeners for tuning in. We hope that you found these insights and data very valuable. If you like us, please rate us and your favorite podcasting app and follow Robert Half and the Legal Talk Network on Twitter and Facebook, and please visit Robert Half dot com for more information and resources, including the Demand for Skilled Talent report, as well as productivity.com for the top risk survey. Join us again for the next edition of The Legal Report from Robert Half here on the Legal Talk Network as we discuss important trends impacting the legal field and legal careers. Until next time, be well.

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