Story from National Business Review
Tuesday 2 August 2022
The founder of online legal recruitment software Insource says the chronic shortage of
lawyers in New Zealand has driven strong demand for monthly subscriptions to the
platform, as firms change how they fill roles.
Currently there are over 1180 advertisements for lawyers on Seek New Zealand with a
third of them placed in the past two weeks.
Insource is a searchable database which law firms and in-house legal teams use to
identify and carry out their own search recruiting, rather than relying on traditional
recruitment firms to fill vacancies. It contains the profiles of more than 30,000 lawyers
holding a practising certificate for New Zealand or Australia.
Founder and former legal search recruiter Jenn Little launched Insource to the New
Zealand market in March 2021. The tech is now being used by 24 New Zealand law firms
including 17 of New Zealand’s 20 largest, employing more than 2,500 lawyers between
them.
An Insource subscription ranges from $750/month up to $2,500/month for New Zealand’s
largest firms.
Little says this is considerably cheaper than paying a traditional percentage based
success fee for recruitment, which can range upwards from $10,000 per candidate placed
by a recruitment agency. She says the market has never been this tough, with a desperate
shortage of available lawyers with more than three years’ experience to attract to
vacancies. This is forcing law firms to take a more proactive approach to recruitment and
retention. Insource’s own analysis of talent movement among New Zealand’s six largest
firms, indicated that 60% of the experienced lawyers recruited in the June quarter 2022
were returning from overseas and re-joining their previous law firm.
Hamilton based law firm, Tompkins Wake has been using Insource for over 12 months.
CEO Jon Calder says Insource is a powerful tool that has completely changed how the
firm locates and identifies talent.
“Insource allows us to scan the market and filter by any number of criteria, creating
shortlists of potential candidates to support our growth and turnover. It has accelerated
our recruitment process and shortened the time to fill roles,” says Calder.
The subscription growth has enabled Little to more than double Insource’s team of
developers and researchers. In 2022 Insource has added all registered legal executives in
New Zealand and is currently working to populate profiles for every lawyer in Australia. By
the end of 2022 Insource will have profiles for more than 100,000 lawyers holding either a
New Zealand or Australian practising certificate.
Following the success of Insource release with New Zealand’s largest national and
provincial law firms, Little is now focusing on reaching deeper into the regions to ensure
all practices and in-house legal teams are aware of the power of the technology.
“My goal is for Insource to be available to law firms of every size.” An Insource subscription
is a substantial saving from the cost of traditional recruitment on commission. The cost
saving is even greater for small law firms.
In late 2021 Little successfully completed a $500,000 capital seed raise among friends and
family.
For more information or to arrange an interview please contact Jenn Little:
Phone: 021 611 416
Email: [email protected]
www.insource.nz
How Insource is used:
• Have immediate visibility of whole talent sectors of registered professionals
• Generate a list of relevant talent in seconds and start connecting with the talent
straight away.
• Access up to date pipelines of talent for future hiring needs eliminating the need
to engage recruitment agencies
• Get up to date data analytics on the talent composition and talent movement to
make better hiring decisions
• Share talent pools easily between hiring partners and HR teams using different
permission levels
About Jenn Little:
Jenn has more than twenty years’ experience working with the legal sector, most recently
searching and placing lawyers into many of New Zealand and Australia’s top-tier, mid-tier
and boutique law firms.
After seven years building and managing her trans-Tasman search and recruitment
business to include key national executive appointments, Jenn LIttle entered the tech
sector in 2019 having built the Insource bespoke technology platform for law firms and
other professional service sectors.
Jenn is also a classically trained professional opera singer, with an extensive network
across business and the arts on both sides of the Tasman.
