March 27, 2020

 Matt Todd

 Pratik Patel

law company Elevateflex legal operations law firm legal spend management covid-19 cost control business of law furlough layoffs rebadging cost cutting

In the last 48 hours, I’ve received a record number of calls from GCs–more than I’ve received in a similarly short timeframe at any point throughout my career. They are stressed, but steadfast. While managing multiple crises, they are asking the right questions; most importantly, they are asking for help.

GCs know how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic from a legal standpoint. They understand what lawyers need, what information to pull from their contracts, and how to mitigate risk for their company in light of potential majeure clause litigation.

Their main concern is managing legal resourcing, jobs, and team confidence amidst the current disruption. Their teams are long-time colleagues (and friends), and in some cases, many GCs are facing the decision to furlough critical portions of their teams due to the current economic outlook. They feel deflated by the thought of sending people home and stressed about how to navigate knowledge gaps, costs, and the delivery of urgent need.

With these challenges in mind, we created a flexible legal resource continuity program to help these GCs and our legal community:

• Identify which legal professionals are critical to upcoming operations and the department’s long-term strategy, but may not be sustainable full time over the coming months
• Brief those professionals on the option to join ElevateFlex during a furlough
• As an ElevateFlex resource, we extend the professional back to the company on an as-needed, daily basis to deliver continuity of knowledge and experience
• To the extent that the professional is not required full-time, we will leverage the ElevateFlex platform to identify additional work either within Elevate or with other Customers to augment their income
• As the disruption is put behind us, release the legal professional back to their department at no additional cost

This plan provides GCs and their team several points of relief:

• First, the shifting of in-house fixed costs and headcount, to a flexible, variable external cost
• Next, it minimizes the immediate loss of talent and historical knowledge
• It provides continuity during this time of surge issues due to COVID-19
• It can offset the risk of resources moving to law firms or competitors
• It keeps the team close, allowing for high potential reconvergence at the earliest convenience
• We have experience of setting-up and support resources for extended remote working
• The ElevateFlex Talent Community provides healthcare in cases where the company healthcare plan does not cover furloughed employees

The current situation is a difficult one. We realize this solution, while innovative, isn’t perfect. There is no ideal solution that offsets the unprecedented challenges faced. However, we’d like to provide a process that is preferable to the current alternative, which may be a furloughed employee left without income and healthcare, looking for a position in a tight market.

The ElevateFlex Resource Continuity Program is available to help our customers and their employees. We’re here to help.