In-house legal departments are facing mounting pressure—from growing workloads and evolving regulatory demands to hiring freezes and limited budgets. So how are legal leaders responding? Many are rethinking traditional team structures and embracing hybrid legal teams, combining internal hires with flexible, external legal support.
The Challenge: Finding the Right Legal Resources
It’s no secret that today’s legal landscape is complex. GCs are balancing budget constraints, business demands, and hiring limitations—all while trying to maintain quality and responsiveness across the board.
Some of the most common pain points we’re hearing from GCs include:
- Too much work, not enough hands: Legal departments are often expected to keep pace with business growth—without corresponding increases in headcount.
- Limited hiring flexibility: Economic uncertainty and organizational constraints make it hard to bring on permanent staff quickly.
- Overreliance on external counsel: While they offer valuable expertise, they are external. When work scales quickly, external counsel can become costly and difficult to align with internal workflows.
Aligning Legal Services with GC Priorities
To meet today’s demands, GCs aren’t just looking for lawyers—they’re looking for solutions. They need:
- Scalable support that can flex with the business
- Specialized expertise they can plug in on-demand
- Trusted partners who understand their industry and company culture
- Operational efficiency to help teams work smarter, not just harder
The Power of Fractional Legal Services
We’ve seen firsthand how GCs have leveraged hybrid legal service models to build legal departments with top-tier resources and the agility their business needs.
When a large life sciences company faced a staffing crunch after several senior lawyers departed, their new GC didn’t rush to hire. Instead, they partnered with Caravel to build a custom support model.
With Caravel’s fractional lawyers stepping in across key areas—commercial, employment, procurement, privacy, and more—the GC was able to:
- Delegate high-volume work to experienced professionals
- Keep pace with business demands during the department’s rebuild
- Build trust with executives by maintaining continuity and responsiveness
Today, the company continues to rely on a mix of embedded Caravel lawyers and ad hoc support—a model that offers both stability and flexibility.
(Read more about how Caravel supported their unique needs here.)
Optimizing In-House Capabilities Through Legal Innovation
For one major Ontario retailer, the problem wasn’t a gap in legal headcount—it was an overburdened legal team spending too much time reviewing low-risk contracts.
Rather than expand the team, they worked with Caravel to create a tailored Contract Playbook. This tool empowered procurement officers to confidently manage common agreements—without needing legal review every time.
The result?
- Faster procurement cycles
- Reduced legal spend
- Freed-up legal resources for strategic work
This kind of innovation doesn’t just solve a resource problem—it transforms how the legal department operates.
Why Hybrid Legal Teams Work
A hybrid legal model offers the best of both worlds: internal continuity and deep company knowledge, paired with external flexibility and specialized expertise.
By combining in-house strengths with Caravel’s bench of legal professionals, GCs are building teams that are:
- Agile enough to scale up or down
- Strategic enough to focus on high-impact work
- Cost-effective enough to stay on budget
Whether you’re rebuilding a department, bridging a gap, or optimizing internal workflows, the hybrid model helps you meet today’s needs—while preparing for tomorrow’s. Connect with us today to learn more about Caravel’s flexible and innovative legal services.