How Legal Teams Leverage Global Secondments for Multilateral Projects

Global secondments essentially refer to temporary assignments at leading law firms, where lawyers are placed in foreign offices, partner firms, or corporate clients in other countries to broaden their expertise, foster collaboration, and enhance client relationships.

Such assignments are often crucial for firms involved in complex, cross-border transactions or multilateral projects. Beyond just facilitating large legal transactions across distances, they also play an essential role in building a young attorney's capabilities.

There are several ways in which legal teams can leverage global secondments. In this article, we uncover a handful of them and provide a brief overview of each.

Building Cultural & Legal Expertise

Working in different locations under new jurisdictions broadens the knowledge and perspectives of young legal professionals. There are few better ways to do this than immersing oneself in new cultures and legal systems.

Lawyers gain sharp insights and an instinctive awareness of legal systems other than those in which they have been schooled and licensed to practice, making such experiences vital for multilateral undertakings.

A lawyer seconded from a US-based firm to its European equivalent may obtain practical expertise with EU legislation to better advise clients on compliance with GDPR, competition laws, or trade rules.

Reading and research alone will never be sufficient to reach this level of proficiency. To comprehend a foreign culture's legal system, one must fully immerse themselves in it. This is one of the reasons why services such as Axiom Secondees have gained prominence in recent years.

• Immersion in Foreign Legal Systems: Firsthand exposure to a new legal system can offer practical knowledge that books cannot provide.
• Real-Time Compliance Advice: Lawyers seconded to different jurisdictions can offer immediate guidance on local laws, making them highly valuable to their firms.

Seconded lawyers acquire a deep awareness of a country's legal system and unique cultural background, which helps their companies provide better service in future cross-border transactions. This allows them to bring invaluable abilities back to their home offices.

Fostering Cross-Border Collaboration

Multilateral projects often involve multiple stakeholders from different countries. By leveraging secondments, legal teams create stronger relationships between offices in various jurisdictions, which is essential for seamless collaboration.

Having a seconded lawyer within a foreign office breaks down communication barriers and streamlines processes that time zone differences or cultural misunderstandings could otherwise slow.

Secondments give legal teams a chance to coordinate their working styles. This is essential when overseeing major initiatives like international arbitration, cross-border litigation, or mergers and acquisitions. Thanks to establishing a standard working procedure, handling the complexity of multilateral engagements is simpler when all teams agree.

• Cross-Jurisdictional Synergy: Creating uniform processes across different offices ensures smoother project management.
• Improved Client Service: Seamless collaboration between legal teams across borders allows faster turnaround times and fewer errors in high-stakes situations.

Additionally, secondments foster a culture of trust and openness. Collaborating in overseas offices enables lawyers to build personal and professional bonds that transcend the transactional aspect of practicing law. These relationships make collaborating easier on future projects where trust and communication are crucial.

Enhancing Client Relationships

From a client's perspective, secondments provide clear benefits. Clients prefer legal counsel who deeply understands their local market, legal frameworks, and business environment.

When a lawyer is seconded to a client's office abroad, they work directly with the client's in-house team, offering tailored legal advice that is more accessible and responsive to real-time needs.

Secondments help businesses build better relationships with their clients, which frequently leads to increased client trust. The customer not only profits from having a legal advisor on-site who is familiar with their particular problems, but the law firm also learns a great deal about the client's internal procedures and business operations, which improves its capacity to provide practical answers.

• Increased Client Trust: Clients gain confidence when their legal advisors are well-versed in local laws and practices.
• Embedded Legal Expertise: Seconded lawyers are part of the client's internal team and offer highly specific legal advice.
• Tailored Solutions: The direct involvement of seconded lawyers in the client's operations allows for more precise, custom legal strategies.

Furthermore, secondments help law firms anticipate future needs by gaining a more profound understanding of clients' issues. This proactive approach can significantly enhance a firm's reputation and client retention.

Developing Well-Rounded Legal Talent

Secondments are not just about advancing the firm's or the client's interests—they are a critical part of career development for individual lawyers. Attorneys who take part in secondments gain priceless soft skills, including flexibility, intercultural communication, and problem-solving in many legal contexts.

These experiences also make lawyers more attractive candidates for leadership roles within their firms. Legal professionals who have navigated complex multinational cases during a secondment are better equipped for senior positions, where a broad and diverse skill set and cross-cultural experiences are required to lead large teams or manage global client relationships.

• Leadership Development: Secondments offer unique challenges that prepare lawyers for leadership roles.
• Enhanced Problem-Solving Abilities: Exposure to various legal systems helps lawyers become better at developing innovative solutions.
• Adaptability: Lawyers learn to navigate unfamiliar legal frameworks, making them more versatile and confident in high-stakes situations.

Lawyers who have taken part in secondments frequently return feeling more mature as professionals because they have experienced scenarios that challenge them to step outside of their comfort zones. This advances their professional development and enhances the firm's overall legal practice.

Addressing Legal Staffing Shortages

Another way firms leverage global secondments is to fill gaps in legal staffing during high-demand periods. Multilateral projects often require specialized legal expertise or additional workforce that a single office may be unable to provide.

Firms can satisfy the needs of large, resource-intensive projects without sacrificing quality or timelines by hiring lawyers temporarily from other locations worldwide.

This adaptability guarantees that the right people are deployed at the right moment, wherever they may be, and enables businesses to build up their teams as needed.

Secondments help legal teams remain agile, whether dealing with an influx of arbitration cases or expanding legal counsel for regulatory changes in a specific region.

• Agility in Staffing: Secondments enable firms to deploy the right talent where it's most needed quickly.
• Scalable Workforce: Legal teams can expand their reach without straining their local resources.
• Timely Expertise: Firms can access specialized legal knowledge promptly, ensuring that large projects stay on track.

This adaptability is especially crucial when managing large projects where delays or errors could lead to significant financial losses or reputational damage.

A Tool for Knowledge Transfer

Global secondments aren't just one-way learning opportunities. They also serve as an effective means of knowledge transfer within a firm. Lawyers who participate in secondments often return to their home offices with new insights, experiences, and legal strategies that they can share with their colleagues.

This knowledge exchange strengthens the firm as a whole, spreading expertise across offices and creating a more cohesive, globally informed workforce. It fosters a culture of continuous learning and development across all levels of the organization.

Firms that consistently engage in secondments cultivate a pool of lawyers with deep international experience, positioning themselves as stronger competitors in the global legal market.

• Cross-Office Knowledge Sharing: Seconded lawyers bring back valuable insights that can benefit the entire firm.
• Building a Global Legal Network: Consistent participation in secondments builds a team of legal professionals who can work worldwide.
• Fostering a Culture of Learning: Knowledge transfer through secondments encourages continuous professional growth.

The ability to transfer knowledge within the firm not only makes the firm more efficient but also makes it more competitive in an increasingly globalized legal landscape.

Conclusion

Law firms have long operated in silos, aiming to be masters of their domains, the king of the hill, without considering the massive mountain on the horizon.

This approach no longer works in an increasingly globalized world, where clients expect solutions to complex problems from different legal jurisdictions, requiring unique and innovative strategies—not something an average run-of-the-mill lawyer can provide.

If you want your firm to grow and your lawyers to think like global professionals, you must use global secondments more effectively. Leverage them to stand out in an evolving, hyper-competitive legal landscape.