How many hours of fractional legal support do you need?

Estimate the hours for work the fractional lawyer will own, then add onboarding, coordination and any agreed availability requirements. Use your own request history to build a range, agree an initial scope and review actual usage early. Set aside the work that remains with your team or outside specialists before calculating the total.

Our Fractional InHouse arrangements range from one to five days a week, scoped around monthly capacity. The right commitment starts with the work you need covered. Use the steps below to estimate it.

Start with the work, not the days

"Two days a week" sounds precise but hides the question. Two days of what? Break the demand into types, because they behave differently.

• Steady flow. Recurring requests such as contract reviews, business questions and approvals. These are the easiest to estimate.
• Peaks. Quarter-end, product launches, fundraising, renewals. Estimate their timing and size separately from routine demand.
• Projects. A template refresh, a policy build, a records clean-up. These have an end date and a defined output.
• Availability. Time spent being reachable and responsive, such as joining recurring meetings or answering within hours. Agree availability separately from billable work and confirm how the engagement accounts for both.
• Coordination. Onboarding, check-ins with you, and explaining context. It is often small in steady state and large at the start.

Include availability and coordination explicitly so neither disappears from the estimate.

Estimate hours from evidence you already have

You probably hold better data than you think.

• Review recent outside counsel invoices for work that could move in-house. Use recorded hours where available; a dollar total alone does not establish the time required.
• Count the requests that reached legal in a typical month, and the average time each takes.
• Ask the lawyers or business owners doing legal work today how many hours a week it takes them, and what they would stop doing if it were off their plate.
• Note the backlog separately. It is a one-time block that you may want to treat differently from the ongoing flow.

Then build a range, not a point estimate. A low case covers steady flow only. A high case adds the peaks and a project. Choose a starting scope that covers the priorities you have agreed, and state what is outside it and how peaks will be handled.

Decide whether you are buying work or availability

Two engagements with the same monthly hours can feel very different. If the lawyer is expected to join impromptu calls, respond quickly through the day and be reachable most of the week, you need an explicit agreement about availability as well as monthly hours. If the work is batched, with clear requests and agreed turnaround times, it may be easier to schedule focused working time.

The same hours allowance does not guarantee the same response times. Say which one you want. If you need rapid responsiveness, build that into the scope so the lawyer is not squeezed between stakeholders who expect immediate answers and an hours cap that does not reflect it.

Expect a heavier start

New lawyers need time to learn your paper, your stakeholders and your appetite for risk. In practice the first weeks often use more time than the steady state, and it includes activities such as reading, meetings and shadowing. Confirm how that time is billed. Plan for a ramp. A scope that works in month three may be too tight in month one, and the reverse is also possible if the lawyer takes on more than expected.

Prepare approved system access and introductions for the start date, after the required agreements and security checks. Delayed access can consume time that should be spent on the work.

Use an initial term, then review early

An initial term helps because it lets you learn from real use rather than forecasts. Two reviews are worth scheduling:

• A short check-in after the first few weeks, to see whether the scope is right and whether the lawyer has what they need.
• A fuller review near the end of the term, to look at utilisation, quality of work and whether the volume has changed.

Between those reviews, share a running view of hours with the lawyer so that drift is visible early. Agree how potential overages are raised and approved. Repeated overages are a reason to review the scope, estimate and priorities.

What to do if demand is uneven

If priorities change often, use a range and a clear process for adjusting capacity. Ask how a provider handles extra hours, unused hours and changes mid-term. Do not assume unused hours carry forward or that overage is charged a certain way. Terms differ, so read them.

Another option is to split the work across more than one lawyer. One person can cover the steady flow while another is added for a peak or a specialist project. That avoids pushing one lawyer far beyond planned hours, without assuming that they can absorb unplanned work.

Signs you have it wrong

A growing queue, repeated overages or work returning to you can signal insufficient capacity, unclear priorities, poor access or a mismatch. Check the cause before adding hours. You have probably bought too much if hours go unused every month, the lawyer is waiting for work, or you find yourself inventing tasks. Both are fixable, but only if someone is watching the numbers.

Misalignment in either direction is a poor experience for both sides. If you ask for a small number and then need a much bigger commitment, or the reverse, the relationship suffers. It is worth taking a little longer on the first scope to avoid that.

A short scoping worksheet

1. List the work types, using the five groups above.
2. Estimate a low and a high number of hours for each.
3. Decide what you will keep in-house and what stays with outside counsel.
4. Note the responsiveness you need, and how many recurring meetings the lawyer will attend.
5. Add a ramp allowance for the first weeks.
6. Choose a starting scope and an initial term.
7. Set the review dates and the numbers you will look at.
8. Agree how extra hours, unused hours and changes are handled in writing.

If you would like help scoping the work, talk to us.

Turn the estimate into a scope of work

Record the client entity, workstreams and named deliverables; the lawyer's ownership and decision limits; matters excluded or escalated; capacity, availability and response expectations; required jurisdiction and experience; systems and stakeholder access; confidentiality and security requirements; term, fees and change approval; review dates; and exit handover. Distinguish estimated hours from response commitments. Have the proposal and engagement agreement reflect the same scope, and revisit them when demand changes.