How to compare the full cost of legal staffing: permanent hires, secondments and flexible counsel

You cannot compare legal staffing options by comparing salaries to rates. A permanent hire carries costs that sit outside salary. A flexible arrangement carries commitments that sit outside the rate. Compare them by converting each proposal into the cost of the usable legal capacity you actually receive, for the same scope and the same period.

This guide gives you a worksheet. It uses no invented rates, so you will need to fill in your own numbers and each provider's written terms.

What a permanent hire costs

For a permanent in-house hire, add up:

• Base salary and any bonus or equity
• Employer payroll taxes and statutory contributions
• Benefits and retirement contributions; reflect paid leave in available capacity without adding the same salary expense twice
• Equipment, software, bar or licence fees and professional development
• Recruiting costs, including any search fee and your team's interview time
• Onboarding and ramp-up, when the person is not yet at full output
• Management time
• The cost of vacancy and replacement if the person leaves

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics compensation framework distinguishes wages and salaries from benefits. Use your own employer costs, not an all-industry multiplier presented as a legal-sector benchmark. Canadian employers should use their own applicable contributions and benefits.

How a seconded lawyer compares with a law firm associate

The two are different products, so compare the structure before the price.

• A seconded lawyer works inside your team for a defined period, usually at a fixed schedule. Secondment pricing may be a flat fee for reserved capacity or billed by the hour, depending on the provider. Axiom's secondments page, for example, describes both a reserved flat fee and variable hourly billing, and says rates depend on the lawyer and the days or hours per week.
• A law firm associate is typically billed by the hour for the matters you send, often with a different person working on different matters, and with the firm's overhead built into the rate.

To compare them, estimate how many hours of real work you will send in a month. A reserved fee may remain payable when capacity goes unused; hourly proposals may still have minimums. Model both under the written terms at low, expected and high demand. The cheaper option is the one that fits your actual work pattern, and the pattern is something you should measure from your last six months.

Which models give predictable monthly costs

Predictability comes from how a model is priced, not from what it is called.

• Reserved capacity at a flat monthly fee can be predictable within the agreed scope, with the risk that you pay for idle time.
• Capped or fixed-fee projects are predictable for the scope agreed, and change orders are where costs rise.
• Hourly billing exposes the budget to volume variation unless capped or otherwise controlled.

We scope Fractional InHouse engagements around monthly capacity and defined workstreams. Confirm the billing basis and any permanent-hire conversion fee in your agreement. Ask every provider what happens in a month when you use less, or more, than the plan.

How to compare proposals with different rates and commitments

Use one scope and one period, then answer these questions for each proposal.

1. What is the rate and its unit: hour, day, week or month?
2. What is the minimum commitment, and what happens if you end early?
3. How long until the lawyer is productive, and is ramp time billed?
4. Who else will you still pay: outside counsel for specialist matters, a recruiter, internal management time?
5. What does replacement cost if the fit is wrong?
6. What is the fee if you convert to permanent?
7. What is excluded: travel, tools, reporting, administrative fees?

Calculate total cost over the same period first. Where the work and seniority are comparable, cost per usable hour can be a supplementary measure; it is not a measure of judgment or outcome quality. If the model does not state hours, document an explicit assumption rather than pretending the proposals are directly interchangeable.

A worksheet to copy

For each option, record:

• Period and expected volume of work
• All fixed costs and commitments
• All variable costs at low, expected and high volume
• Ramp and management time, valued at an internal rate
• Retained costs for outside counsel and other support
• Exit and conversion costs
• Total cost at low, expected and high volume

Review the low and high cases first. If one option looks good only in the expected case, it is more fragile than the number suggests.

Test savings claims, including ours, against your own workload and costs before using them in a budget.