I have no idea if ItsMyLaw, the business currently talking to several substantial commercial law firms about using contract lawyers, will be a company that ushers in a breakthrough in the legal business model. But it would be surprising if the UK legal market didn’t in future make more use of ‘floating’ lawyers instructed for specific mandates, as opposed to employed by law firms themselves.
After all, we are often told that many talented lawyers are not interested in becoming partners anymore and that junior lawyers increasingly value the chance to have flexibility in deploying their legal skills. In a good number of cases it seems the claustrophobic confines of the law firm career track force associates and partners with fundamentally different priorities to rub along together – frequently rubbing each other up the wrong way.
