This large municipality is organized into more than 50 agencies, each with its own legal needs. In the past, whenever one of those agencies needed to bring on attorneys or legal support staff, it had to issue its own Request for Proposals. That process could take months to complete before a single hire was made.
During those long procurement cycles, urgent projects often stalled because no staff could be brought in until the RFP was finished. Bill rates varied from agency to agency, making budgeting unpredictable. Experience requirements across city agencies were inconsistent, which meant that the quality of hires could differ dramatically depending on who was managing the process.
Each agency had its own way of handling reporting, so there was no citywide view of how legal staffing was being used. Invoicing and contract management were also separate, creating extra work for internal teams and slowing down payment approvals.
The result was a system that was slow, inefficient, and costly. Agencies with similar needs were repeating the same procurement process over and over again, wasting valuable time and resources.
What was needed was a single contract that all agencies could use, one that would remove the need for separate RFPs, create consistent bill rates, set clear experience requirements, centralize reporting, and simplify billing. The goal was to move away from dozens of disconnected procurements toward a unified process that still allowed each agency to make its own hiring decisions.
This City’s Law Department introduced a master legal staffing contract that any City agency could access. This allowed agencies to bring on qualified attorneys and legal support professionals without having to run their own RFPs. The process became faster and far more consistent, with standardized bill rates and experience requirements, citywide reporting, and a single set of billing procedures.
This shared agreement also made it possible for the City to respond quickly to new and urgent legal needs. Projects that would have taken months to staff under the old system could now be launched in a fraction of the time, without sacrificing quality or compliance.
629
Legal Hires
552,856+
Hours of Legal Support
50+
Cities Unified
To support the program, OCC created custom systems for ordering, time tracking, and billing. The platform allowed for matter-specific time capture in six-minute increments, provided automatic budget alerts, and consolidated invoicing across all participating agencies.
Since this model was put in place, OCC has staffed a total of 629 attorneys and legal support professionals across the City.
If your agency is considering a centralized contract after seeing how this City’s Law Department streamlined its hiring, OCC can guide you through that process and help design a vehicle that fits your needs. OCC prides itself in delivering centralized legal staffing solutions that reduce complexity and deliver results. OCC’s recruiters, many with legal backgrounds, know how to identify and place attorneys and support staff who are ready to step in and contribute across every key role.
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