Flexible careers

Our lawyer-led, creative approach is integral to what makes Source distinctive. We aim to maximise the breadth and quality of both the work we do for clients and the opportunities we can offer you. Our application process has been developed with this dual purpose in mind.

Our application process is always conducted by our CEO Peter Workman in person, sometimes also involving input from other senior lawyers. We invest the time and expertise of experienced solicitors from the very start of our relationship with you. The reasons for this are:

1. It gives you the best opportunity to get to know us, understand our culture and priorities, and ask us any questions about how assignments through Source work in practice and what you should expect.
2. It gives us the best understanding of your situation, personal goals and practical preferences, the last including client types, work types and assignment types (e.g. as to location, in-person or remote, full-time or part-time, and duration).
3. It gives us the best understanding of your skills and experience, helping us to arrange successful assignments and perhaps to make creative suggestions such as, for instance, teaming up with Temple Bright partners who can meet client requirements falling outside your expertise. This can broaden the range of opportunities available to you.

With all this in mind, we envisage a friendly and wide-ranging two-way discussion. Our confidential application process typically involves the following steps:

1. You would send us your CV, by email to peter.workman@sourceprosupport.com or by uploading it through the form on our flexible careers page.
2. Peter will contact you to confirm whether we are keen to explore the prospect of you joining the Source Panel.
3. If we are, Peter will meet you (in person or virtually) for an interview, perhaps involving another Source director alongside him.
4. After the interview Peter will confirm next steps. If he feels further discussion would be beneficial, Peter may propose a second interview, again conducted by him and/or senior colleagues, such as another Source director or a relevant Temple Bright specialist.
5. We will carry out background and screening checks, which may include business and/or personal references.

Successful candidates will be provided with our short agreement governing Panel membership. Once this has been completed, we will share with you the framework terms that usually apply to Source assignments. Once you have confirmed that you are in principle happy with these (regulations oblige us to seek this confirmation, which does not bind you), your membership of the Source Panel can be activated. Peter will remain your point of contact and will be in touch about potential opportunities.

We will maintain dialogue with you to ensure that we identify and suitably manage any potential professional conduct concerns, such as conflict of interest or confidential information issues, that might arise in connection with any opportunity.

Source in-house placements typically last between three months and a year. They could in theory be terminated early by the client, but more often clients request an extension (sometimes more than once). Extensions of this kind would be subject to the lawyer’s agreement, which might be given subject to a review of rates.

Assignments can be full-time or part-time. Usually, they are for at least four days a week although sometimes they are for less. If you have less availability in each week than the client has specified in its requirement, we may be able to agree on a mutually satisfactory solution in discussion with the client, given the parallel support available through Temple Bright.

The latter is a further example of how our collaboration with a new model law firm can increase our flexibility and broaden the range of opportunities available to you.

Our flexible lawyers might attend a client’s office, work remotely or carry out a mixed approach. Self-evidently, clients requiring in-person attendance most days will select candidates living within a commutable distance. However, it is not uncommon for assignments to comprise an initial period wholly or mainly in person which is then succeeded by a more remote or mixed approach. This can make the assignment viable for candidates from a larger geographical radius. We have found that many clients are increasingly comfortable with flexible lawyers working remotely, at least some of the time. We can discuss this aspect with you at the outset and will tailor our approach to reflect your priorities.

The first step in relation to any assignment is a discussion between the client and our CEO, Peter Workman. This is to ascertain the client’s needs and how these can best be met. In dialogue with the client, Peter applies his twenty-plus years’ experience as a corporate lawyer to help formulate the most practical solution and to identify the attributes and expertise required of candidates.

Once the preferred approach and key terms (usually including scope of work, desired pricing and likely duration) have been agreed in principle, Peter will identify the most suitable lawyers from the Source Panel and have a discussion with each of them about the assignment and whether it might suit them. Just like our clients, our lawyers benefit from Peter’s expertise as a corporate lawyer and his resulting ability to navigate and interpret the true requirements of each assignment.

Once we have a shortlist of candidates who have confirmed that they wish to be put forward, we will present their CVs to the client, discuss the CVs and establish which candidate(s) the client wishes to interview.

We will then arrange the interviews, giving candidates further guidance beforehand if they wish. Once there is agreement in principle for a particular candidate to proceed, contractual terms can be proposed to them based on the framework document already provided, suitably tailored for this assignment. Once these terms are signed and we have completed our contract with the client, the assignment can begin.

We will then remain regularly in contact with both the lawyer and the client, to obtain feedback and discuss any new developments and potential changes to the arrangements.

The typical client for most flexible legal support businesses is a larger organisation with an in-house legal team. This might be a PLC or other large business, or it might be a public body such as a local authority or government office. Source has been established to meet the needs of such clients and also smaller companies and professional firms seeking flexible legal support. Given our tailored approach and streamlined model, we can work effectively with clients of all sizes.

We serve clients in a broad range of sectors. In some industries it is vital for lawyers to have sector experience, given factors such as sector-specific regulation, working practices and forms of contract. In others, your transferable practice area expertise may suffice. Such considerations inform our dialogue with clients from the outset. Our firsthand familiarity with these questions, as practising solicitors experienced in advising in-house legal teams, and the resulting pragmatism and sound judgement, helps us to create the best possible match on each assignment.

Usually, our client is a UK business or the UK branch of an international business. This reflects the fact that our lawyers are UK-based and are specialists in English law. However, we are open to assignments outside the UK subject to a discussion of how practical issues can be addressed.

Source is not limited to assisting Temple Bright clients. We provide our services to businesses in general, anticipating that many would continue to be advised by various law firms while using flexible lawyers, from Source and perhaps other flexible legal support providers in parallel.

There are three obvious advantages arising from the fact that Source has been established by and collaborates with a law firm, Temple Bright, and is run by three highly experienced practising solicitors.

First, we apply a solicitor’s high standards to both the recruitment of lawyers to our Panel and to the proposal of candidates to clients. This results in credibility for the Source brand and for members of our Panel.

Secondly, we bring a solicitor’s professional expertise to the discussion of the client’s needs and how these can best be met. An example of this is described in our response to the previous FAQ: to what extent is sector-specific experience needed for a particular role. A further example would be our ability to formulate and propose creative solutions, such as an in-house placement supported by external Temple Bright lawyers to avoid the client committing itself to more placement cover, or as the case may be more reliance on external lawyers, than is strictly necessary. We provide equally cogent and well informed guidance for our lawyers, matching your skills with prospective assignments.

Thirdly, Source can provide a streamlined full service through its arrangements with Temple Bright. This includes call-off support as well as in-house placements and project teams, and potentially a hybrid senior team. Unlike many hybrid in-house/external offerings, ours would involve external support exclusively from experienced partners. These partners work in the distinctive, client-friendly style summed up in Temple Bright’s four promises. Our hybrid teams are therefore distinguished by their cohesion and consistency of approach.

As such, our clients benefit from a uniquely high quality one-stop-shop for legal support for an hour or a year, or anything between. For our lawyers, there is collegiality and the satisfaction derived from being part of a wider group of likeminded, highly skilled specialists who can contribute expertise in a broad range of practice areas.

In addition to the benefits of collaboration just described, Source lawyers on assignment have access to Temple Bright’s resources and to the firm’s partners for informal, confidential discussion of legal points.

We can also provide members of our Panel with mentoring and guidance on CV-writing, interviews and choosing assignments. Once again, such contributions come from senior practising lawyers (in this case, our directors) and not from non-solicitor managers.

Our friendly, tailored and personal lawyer-to-lawyer approach is designed to attract and serve the best professionals wishing to build the best possible flexible career.

Your membership of the Panel would be confidential under the terms of the agreement between you and us. We should not need to disclose your membership other than to clients offering assignments for which you wish to be put forward and for the associated background checks, or where you have otherwise indicated that you are happy for us to do so.

Membership of the Panel is non-exclusive and imposes no obligation on you to accept any assignments that we may offer. However, it does enable you to receive such offers from us.

The advantages of a flexible career include the ability to choose which assignments you take on, to opt for part-time assignments if preferred, to take on legal or other work from elsewhere or simply to take time out.

There will, of course, be obligations on you if you opt to take on an assignment through Source. You will be party to a contract which governs your work on that assignment. As already noted, it is not unusual for clients to seek extensions beyond the initially anticipated term, but there is no obligation on you to agree to any such extension if you do not wish to do so.

We ask you to keep us updated as to your other activity whilst on assignment (helping us to avoid conflict issues) and as to your availability from time to time generally (so that we know whether to approach you to discuss inclusion in the shortlist for any upcoming assignment).

As such, we will not interpret your joining the Source Panel as an indication that you are available for placements, either immediately or necessarily at any time in the future.

You can withdraw from the Panel by giving us notice at any time.

Source rates are not fixed and will vary by assignment, being influenced by various factors.

While we are interviewing you for the Source Panel, we will discuss current market rates and provide guidance on the range of potential compensation you can anticipate on assignments.

Once you are a member of our Panel and we are discussing any specific assignment with you, naturally that discussion will include rates. The discussion will take account of factors such as your experience and skills and the prevailing market conditions, as well as the specific client, its needs and any indication it has given as to its desired pricing for the assignment (see the fifth FAQ above, “What is the process for being selected for an assignment, and beyond?”).

Once we have established your preferred approach, this can inform our dialogue with the client. We will also remain in dialogue with you, with a view to settling an attractive remuneration deal.

In our experience the most popular practice areas for flexible legal support tend to be broad non-contentious advisory practice areas such as corporate, commercial (including data privacy), IP & technology, employment, financial services, company secretarial, compliance and ESG.

While such practice areas yield the greatest number of opportunities, expertise in other areas is often required by clients involved in sectors associated with a legal discipline, such as real estate, construction, planning, energy or media. Support from litigators (both general and specialised) may also be required, particularly by larger clients.

Our sample opportunities page sets out some skills and experience profiles for which there is currently high demand. However, this page is not exhaustive and new opportunities regularly arise. We invite applications from strong candidates in all commercial practice areas, for current and future opportunities.

Yes, although PQE is determined by your amount of experience working as a solicitor in your area of expertise, rather than the number of years since you qualified. So if you are working for only part of any year on placements, just the period spent working counts towards your PQE.

While inevitably some such roles are available only to lawyers who have taken and maintained a particular path, as a general rule there should be nothing to prevent a return to a traditional private practice or in-house role after a period spent on credible in-house placements. The depth and breadth of experience conferred by such placements can be an asset to one’s CV and can furnish valuable insights and skills to be taken into future roles.

Furthermore, flexible work can serve as a springboard to permanent roles, whether planned or not. Some lawyers use in-house placements as a way of gaining experience of a sector and enhancing their CV before making applications for permanent roles. In some cases, a client simply decides that it wants to keep its flexible lawyer and offers them a permanent role.

The prospect of taking control of one’s working life can be exciting but a little daunting.

Those embarking on a flexible career path in law need to be confident that their skills are sufficiently mature to be useful to clients who are likely to engage flexible lawyers. However, the model is popular with a broad swathe of businesses, many of whom are seeking support from quite junior experience levels upward. Flexible lawyers will also be expected to be practical and commercial, and to adapt swiftly to new working environments and perhaps new industries.

An obvious point to bear in mind is that there is not the formal certainty of income found in traditional partnership or employment. We cannot promise you that Source will provide you with opportunities that you wish to take up, although we hope and expect to do so. Nevertheless, you should establish your minimum income requirements for the early days and how these would be met if suitable opportunities did not transpire quickly.

However, the de facto certainty of income in a flexible legal career can be extremely good, for a skilled solicitor who is personable and available for new opportunities. One advantage of this path is that one is rarely limited to a single platform for accessing paid work, although as lawyers grow more comfortable in this new situation they will often settle on one or two.

The flexible career is becoming an increasingly recognised and respected option, a “third way” outside the traditional private practice and in-house paths. Ever more clients and lawyers are making use of the model and for high calibre lawyers who are seeking to maintain a serious career but with greater freedom, it is an attractive prospect.

Our CEO Peter Workman describes the benefits of a flexible career in more detail in his article, Taking control.

No. The two businesses are separate, although it is possible to be a member of the Source Panel and also a Temple Bright partner. The combination of in-house placements through Source and private practice within the Temple Bright team can result in satisfying variety and increased income security, while your professional emphasis develops in your preferred direction over time.

Those interested in joining our Panel and receiving placement opportunities through Source should follow the application process on this website, dealing with our CEO Peter Workman.

Those wishing to find out more about Temple Bright should visit the Careers page on the firm’s website and contact Tim Summers for further information.