Moonlighting lawyers for defined, scoped projects.
Workflow capture and playbooks in about 6 weeks per practice area
Fractional or interim legal innovation leads for deeper needs.
Typically 6 to 12 months, with optional temp-to-perm conversion
We match each Counselerate lawyer to the AI platforms and workflows your team already uses, and we tell you up front which tools each lawyer has worked with.
The AI models are powerful and widely available. What makes them work in legal is practicing lawyers who know how the work is actually done in a given practice area, from litigation and employment to contracts, restructuring and more, and who can turn that knowledge into workflows, playbooks and training.
Counselerate matches each project with a lawyer who has the right practice-area expertise, not a generic technologist.
Tell us the practice area and we match you with a lawyer who has done that work, whether that is litigation, restructuring, M&A, intellectual property, private equity, employment or another area. A generalist can demo a tool. A practitioner can make it work.
Bring in innovation lawyers for the project instead of a permanent innovation hire, without carrying full salary plus benefits for a role that is still taking shape.
| W-2 hire | Counselerate |
|---|---|
| Base salary | Pay for the project or interim term only |
| Full benefits load and payroll taxesFor management and professional roles, benefits add roughly 46% on top of wages (benefits are 31.5% of total compensation).Source: BLS ECEC, June 2026 | No benefits load |
| Recruiting fees and months to hireLegal recruiters typically charge about 25% of first-year salary (commonly 20% to 33%). Average executive cost-per-hire is $35,879, up 113% since 2017, and the median time to fill is about a month and a half.Source: BCG Attorney Search; Lateral Link; SHRM, 2025; SHRM, 2025 | Fast start with a matched lawyer |
| Onboarding ramp | Experienced lawyers who already know the work |
| Severance and mis-hire riskReplacing a highly paid specialist can cost up to 213% of salary.Source: Center for American Progress, 2012 | Changing course means swapping talent, not restarting a search |
| Locked to one skill set | Swap talent as needs change |
| Paid between projects | Scale up or down, with optional temp-to-perm |
Only 18% of professional services firms track AI ROI.
Source: Thomson Reuters Institute, 2026Legal engineer postings grew more than tenfold, yet law and tech roles are still only about 2.4% of legal job postings.
Source: Legal.io, 2026You sometimes need to change people in and out as the tools and workflows develop. The skills you need in month 1 (workflow capture) are different from month 6 (adoption, new tools). Our model lets you rotate the right talent in and out; a permanent hire locks you into one profile.
Month 1
Workflow capture and playbooks
Month 6
Adoption, training and new tools
Each phase of an innovation project needs different talent: strategy, workflow design in your practice area, testing, rollout and training, then scaling. We staff each phase with the right lawyer, instead of asking one permanent hire to do it all.
See the phases of innovationWe learn your workflows, tools and goals, then define the project or interim role.
We match a lawyer who has practiced in your area, so workflows and playbooks reflect how the work really runs.
Workflow maps, playbooks, prompt libraries and pilot results, built with your team.
Your team owns the work. Or extend the engagement, or convert to a permanent hire.
Share a few details and we will set up a scope call.