Firm Offered ‘Kelly Girl’ Lawyers at Just Right Time : Employment: Recession-driven cutbacks and attorney burnout fueled the growth of legal temporary agency.

HARTFORD, Conn. — For attorney and entrepreneur Shelley Wallace, the recession could not have come at a better time.

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After sending her twin boys off to kindergarten, Wallace set out in 1987 to establish a temporary legal employment agency for working mothers, like herself, who did not want to put in 12 or 14 hours a day at the office.

At first, people scoffed at the idea of a kind of “Kelly Girl for lawyers.”

Wallace got the last laugh--twice.

Her firm, Wallace Law Registry, capitalized on recession-driven cutbacks in corporate legal departments to grow from an office above a gas station into a 13-city company with more than 40,000 lawyers, paralegals and clerks on its roster.

And in May, the multimillion-dollar firm was acquired for an undisclosed sum by Kelly Services of Troy, Mich., the big temporary employment company.

“Lawyers are in many ways the quintessential temporary--they work for client for a certain period of time, then look for another client, or have many clients they work for,” said Eugene L. Hartwig, senior vice president and general counsel for Kelly.

Wallace, who remains president of the company she founded, remembers in the early days, “people saying this was a Fulton’s Folly kind of thing.”

She wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of the derision.

Lesley Friedman, president of Special Counsel International of New York, who also founded her temporary legal staffing firm in 1987, recalled, “People said, ‘You’re crazy. No one’s going to hire temporary lawyers.’ They thought all temporary lawyers were bag people.”

Wallace, 44, got her law degree in 1977 from Hofstra University.

She practiced commercial and appellate law in Manhattan before taking time off in 1981 to care for her newborn twins.

When she returned to work six years later, she decided other working mothers might like to practice law part time. She started Wallace Law Registry.

As it turned out, most of her first job applicants were men, many of them burning out from working long hours. Wallace also found she had chosen a perfect time to start the company: A recession was underway, and law firms and corporate legal departments were being squeezed to cut costs. Firms appointed fewer partners.

The workload did not decrease, however, and the demand for temporary legal help increased.

“A corporation has to be flexible, to staff with exactly the expertise needed at that time. Temporary workers do that--allow you to turn on a dime,” Wallace said.

Still, the idea of temporary legal help was so new, law firms and corporations were hesitant to embrace the registry.

Many clients sought temporary paralegals or clerks, and asked for help in finding permanent placements. Although Wallace had not planned to offer these services, she tried to provide what was needed.

Most of Wallace’s staff are experienced, specialized lawyers who have chosen temporary employment for a variety of reasons.

Many failed to reach partner status after a long time in a firm, while others were laid off, have shirked the law firm environment, or want to work part time to spend more time with their families.

Wallace Law Registry lawyers can make six-figure salaries, and are often hired by their temporary employers.

With Kelly’s resources behind it, Wallace Law Registry plans to expand to Atlanta and Pittsburgh by the end of the year and then go overseas.

“Because our growth has been doubling every year, we needed more and more capital to grow,” Wallace said of the deal with Kelly.

For Kelly, the acquisition of Wallace Law Registry means the company can expand its line of services into more high-end professions, Hartwig said. It also has engineers and accountants on its rolls.

The earnings of temporary professionals, including lawyers, doctors and managers, has more than doubled since studies on their earnings began in 1991, said Bruce Steinberg, spokesman for the National Assn. of Temporary and Staffing Services.

In 1994, they made $1.2 billion -- nearly 5 percent of the temporary industry’s total $24.7-billion payroll.

Steinberg predicted professional temporary employment will grow.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. has used Wallace’s firm since 1992 to supplement its corporate legal department in Chicago and recruit lawyers for its corporate team.

“It gives us better control of our fixed costs, to use their personnel to supplement our staff,” said Jan Drummond, a company spokeswoman. “Our lawyers think their personnel do a fine job.”

“The law profession is becoming more of a contract industry, in part because of the economy and in part because we have some great lawyers out there who want to be temps,” said Friedman at Special Counsel International.

FO Shelley Wallace founded Wallace Law Registry, the country’s largest temporary legal employment agency.