The New Short-Term Solution: Inside the Growing Legal Gig Economy

I started my career, like many college graduates with an interest in law, as a paralegal. With few personal connections to firms in my college town of Boston and the threat of student loan repayments beginning to loom, I started looking for legal support work on Craigslist. A few emails later, I'd secured a couple of job interviews, and a couple weeks later, I started a full-time job as a paralegal in a firm handling Social Security disability casework.

Craigslist's legal postings for both attorneys and legal support staff look a little different these days—and a little less likely to favor full-time employment. The website's legal “gig” section has ballooned, as firms are increasingly likely to advertise for contract-to-hire, temporary, or part-time positions and staffing agencies look to place contract attorneys and legal support staff on specific projects.

Gig economies that have become a kind of new normal in industries across the United States are beginning to work their way into the legal space. Gig workers drawn from both Big Law layoffs and shifting workplace flexibility needs are quickly replacing junior associate classes and changing the labor landscape of the legal industry. Given their increasing reliance on these contract workers, firms and in-house departments, along with the platforms connecting them to these gig workers, are likely to be pressed to consider the responsibilities they may have in supporting this new workforce.