01
You choose the lawyer
You interview a shortlist and choose the person, the same way you would fill any seat in your firm. Nobody is allocated to you. And unlike a recruiter's search, ours costs nothing upfront: there is no placement fee.
Singularity · Full-time legal talent · South Africa → United Kingdom
South African lawyers.Full-time in your firm.Up to 50% less.
Vetted South African attorneys, working full-time and exclusively for your firm. You choose the lawyer and direct the work. The lawyer is engaged by Singularity, not by your firm, and we handle the rest under one simple agreement. All at up to 50% less than a comparable UK hire.
Your first placement starts with thirty days at our risk, not yours.
Up to 50%
below the total cost of a comparable UK hire. We show you the maths on the call.
30 days
at our risk on your first placement. If it is not a success, end it, pay nothing, and we still pay the consultant.
£0
placement fee. The search, the vetting and the shortlist cost you nothing upfront.
High Court
every attorney we place has been admitted by the High Court of South Africa and enrolled with the Legal Practice Council, then vetted by the lawyers on our own team.
Firms and organisations we work with
More than sixty lawyers placed with more than twenty firms in three years.
How it works
Not a shared bench, and not a temp desk. A straightforward way to put a dedicated, full-time lawyer to work in your firm.
02
The engagement sits with us
Your lawyer is engaged by Singularity as a consultant and works exclusively on your matters. There is no contract between the lawyer and your firm. We handle the engagement, the payments and the ongoing administration, so your side of the arrangement stays simple.
03
They work as your team works
Full-time and dedicated to you: your matters, your systems, your supervision, your hours. South Africa sits one to two hours ahead of London, so the working day is shared.
04
One agreement behind it all
A single agreement with Singularity sits behind the whole arrangement. It is short, it is in plain English, and you see it before anything starts.
The roles we fill
A full-time placement only makes sense if the work is really there. These are the seats UK firms fill through Singularity, and the work those consultants run with day to day.
01
Commercial & transactional lawyers
First-draft contracts
NDAs, MSAs, supply and services agreements, drafted to your precedent and house style.
Mark-ups and amendment turns
Turning counterparty comments so your senior fee-earners review rather than redraft.
Due diligence
Data-room review with issue lists and summaries in your report format.
Precedent and template upkeep
The template library your firm keeps meaning to fix.
02
Litigation & disputes lawyers
Disclosure and document review
First-pass review, tagging and privilege flags under your protocol.
Chronologies and bundles
Hearing bundles, key-document chronologies, dramatis personae.
First drafts of witness statements
First drafts from transcripts and notes, ready for counsel's red pen.
03
Knowledge & research lawyers
Research memoranda
A question goes in and a memorandum comes out, authorities cited, prepared to your house style.
Case and regulatory summaries
Judgment digests and regulatory tracking your team never has time for.
04
Paralegals & support
Vetted paralegals
For firms that specifically want paralegal support at a paralegal rate, vetted the same way our attorneys are.
Practice areas
The areas our lawyers serve today, and the work they typically run with in each.
Employment
Contracts, policies, settlement agreements and tribunal preparation.
IP & trade marks
Filing support, office actions, renewals and infringement research.
Corporate
Due diligence, ancillary documents, board minutes and data-room management.
Commercial
NDAs, MSAs, supply and licensing agreements, amendment turns.
Medical negligence
Records review, chronologies, quantum research and witness statement drafts.
Family
Disclosure schedules, Form E support and hearing bundles.
Consumer claims
Claims triage, letters before action prepared for your firm to send, and portal management at volume.
Wills & probate
Will drafting support, estate administration and probate applications.
Private client
Trusts and estates support, LPAs and client correspondence.
We cover further areas in a paralegal capacity. If your area is not listed, ask. If we cannot staff it, we will say so.
Why South Africa
Not a generic offshore pitch. Six structural facts about one jurisdiction, each one checkable.
01
Same legal family
South African law is a common-law system built on Roman-Dutch foundations and shaped, extensively, by English law. The influence runs deepest in exactly the areas most UK firms need: sale, agency, insurance, negotiable instruments and company law were built on English models, and English authorities are cited in the South African courts and taught in South African law schools to this day. The general law of contract keeps its Roman-Dutch roots, with no doctrine of consideration for instance, but these are differences a good lawyer notices and works around, not ones that stop them drafting an English-law services agreement to your precedent. They reason the way the lawyers you already employ reason, because they were taught from a substantially overlapping body of case law. That is not true of most jurisdictions UK firms recruit from.
02
The same route to qualification
A South African attorney and an England and Wales solicitor arrive at admission by closely parallel routes. Both start with an LLB. Both then serve a period of supervised practical training, around two years in each jurisdiction. Both sit professional examinations set by the profession's regulator. And both finish with formal admission: in South Africa, by order of the High Court, followed by enrolment with the Legal Practice Council. The shape of the training is familiar because it grew from the same root, which is why a South African attorney walking into an English commercial team does not need the job explained to them, only your version of it.
03
English, first
English is the language of South African legal education, practice and the courts. Drafting arrives ready to send, not ready to translate.
04
Your working day
South Africa sits one to two hours ahead of London all year round. Your consultant is at their desk when you are. No overnight hand-offs, and none of the '24/7 support' theatre. The professional culture is close, too. Firm structures, billing models, matter management and the everyday conventions of practice are all recognisable, so there is no cultural translation layer to build.
05
Honest economics
Up to 50% below the total cost of a comparable UK hire. The saving comes from exchange rates and cost of living, not from quality, and we put the comparison in writing before you commit.
06
Vetted by lawyers, not recruiters
Admission as a South African attorney requires an LLB, a period of practical vocational training of around two years, and the Legal Practice Council's competency examinations, before admission by order of the High Court. That bar is set by statute, not by us. Then our own vetting starts: every candidate is scrutinised and interviewed by the lawyers on Singularity's team before they ever reach your shortlist. Lawyers screening lawyers.
Confidentiality, data and your regulatory position
For client-privileged work this is the section that matters most, so it gets its own place rather than a badge in the footer.
01
The structure
The lawyer is engaged by Singularity and works exclusively for your firm. Engagement, payment and administration all sit with us. The full structure is set out in our engagement terms, which you see before anything starts.
02
Confidentiality, in writing
Every placement runs under a written confidentiality undertaking: a firm-level agreement with Singularity, plus a personal undertaking from the individual lawyer.
03
Data protection
Your consultant works from South Africa, inside your document management system and your channels. That means client material is accessed from outside the UK, and the arrangement is built for it: Singularity has International Data Transfer Agreements in place, signed by Singularity and by every individual consultant. Your firm stays the controller and decides what access to grant. You will want your own privacy information to reflect that client material may be accessed from South Africa, and we will flag it, but it is your call. We are happy to take your DPO through the paperwork before you commit.
04
Your regulatory position
Your firm's obligations do not change because a colleague sits in Cape Town. Responsibility for the work, and for supervising the people who do it, stays with your firm as a matter of regulation. Nothing in our arrangement alters that, and nothing in it is designed to. How your firm records the arrangement in its own compliance framework is a matter for your COLP, and firms take different views: some log it under their outsourcing controls, others treat it as remote resourcing. We do not make that call for you. What we do is make sure the working structure supports either answer: you choose the individual, you direct the work, you supervise it, and your own solicitors carry out anything reserved.
05
Professional indemnity
Singularity carries its own professional indemnity cover, and we will give your COLP the details on request. Your firm's own PI arrangements are unaffected: your consultant's work is your firm's work.
The engagement terms are short and in plain English. Ask for them on the call. Or ask for them now.
How a placement happens
Four steps, no theatre. You interview people, not proposals.
01
Scope
A 20-minute call about the seat you need filled, the must-haves, and what the first months of work look like.
02
Shortlist
We put forward a small shortlist. Every candidate has already been scrutinised and interviewed by the lawyers on our team, and our vetting notes come with the CVs. The search costs you nothing.
03
Interview & choose
You interview them the way you would interview any hire. If nobody clears your bar, we go back to the market. You do not settle.
04
They start with you
Your chosen lawyer starts full-time, engaged through Singularity, with the engagement and administration handled by us. Like any hire worth making, they may have notice to serve first, usually around a month. We stay in the picture with check-ins on both sides.
If your first placement's first thirty days are not a success, you pay nothing.
Your first placement begins with a thirty-day period at our risk. If you do not consider it a success, for any reason, you can end it there and then. You are not billed for the month, and we still pay the consultant ourselves.
After that: no placement fee to start, no lock-in to stay, and a replacement whenever you ask, whatever the reason. Conventional recruiters take their fee upfront and offer sliding rebates when it goes wrong. We would rather carry the risk ourselves.
The detail sits in our engagement terms, which you see before anything starts. Nothing on this page varies them.
What clients say
Named firms, on camera and in public reviews, reproduced verbatim. Nothing anonymised, nothing invented.
Mehmooda Duke
Moosa Duke Solicitors
Video testimonial
David Knott
FatBets
Video testimonial
Éamon Chawke
Briffa
Video testimonial
5★ Google review
“With a busy trade mark and design filing practice we often found team members quickly moving on and rightfully so to progress their careers by either training to become a qualified trade mark attorney or a solicitor. Finding quality candidates committed to the role long term was becoming a challenge. Working with Singularity has alleviated that for us in that they supply high quality, professional and committed consultants from South Africa. We have found the process to be seamless and efficient, with the consultants quickly becoming part of our busy team. In fact, we were so impressed we used Singularity twice and now have two consultants working for us remotely. Highly recommend.”
5★ Google review
“A top resource for providing excellent professional staff. Singularity LPO are always readily available for queries and sourcing contractors. They provide a superb service which has made a real positive difference to the company and in particular our clients. Highly recommended.”
5★ Google review
“The people we have taken on via Singularity are of the highest calibre and we expect to take on more in due course.”
A note from our founder
Firms sometimes ask what sits behind Singularity. The honest answer: a network of more than a thousand South African lawyers, a vetting team made of lawyers rather than recruiters, and a placement process we refuse to rush.
Scale is never the shortcut. Every shortlist is prepared candidate by candidate, and if we do not have the right person for your work, we say so and go back to the market until we do. Three years of working that way has placed more than sixty lawyers with more than twenty firms, and most of them are still in their seats.
Mike Prince
Founder, Singularity
Ready when you are.
Twenty minutes, no deck, no obligation. Bring the seat you're struggling to fill and we'll tell you honestly whether we can help.
Book a 20-minute call
Your first placement starts with thirty days at our risk, not yours.
Prefer email? hello@singularitylpo.com