LEAP Legal Software, a global leader in cloud-based legal practice management solutions for small law firms, has fundamentally transformed its talent acquisition strategy and operational efficiency through a long-standing partnership with Workable, an advanced applicant tracking system. This strategic collaboration has yielded impressive results, including a significant reduction in HR administrative burden, the complete elimination of external recruiter spend for key roles, and the establishment of a robust, referral-driven hiring model that has accounted for 100% of its US hires over the past year. These outcomes underscore the critical role that modern HR technology plays in enabling global growth, fostering talent quality, and upholding principles of fairness in the hiring process.
The Evolving Landscape of Legal Tech and Global Expansion
Founded over three decades ago in Australia, LEAP Legal Software has grown from a regional innovator into a truly global enterprise, extending its footprint across the United Kingdom and the United States. With approximately 900 employees worldwide, the company’s expansion reflects a broader trend in the legal technology sector, where cloud-based solutions are increasingly critical for small and medium-sized law firms seeking to enhance efficiency and competitiveness. The US arm of LEAP, specifically responsible for support, sales, client success, and implementation roles, became a focal point for talent acquisition challenges as the company scaled rapidly.
Susanne Poole, who oversees all aspects of people, recruitment, and culture for LEAP’s US operations, found herself in a familiar predicament for many HR leaders in fast-growing tech companies: operating as a "team of one." This meant juggling the intense demands of recruiting a high volume of specialized talent while simultaneously managing broader HR responsibilities, from employee relations to culture building. The pace of growth and the imperative to attract top-tier professionals in a competitive market necessitated a highly efficient and scalable recruitment infrastructure.
Overcoming Pre-Existing Recruitment Bottlenecks
Before its adoption of Workable in December 2018, LEAP’s recruitment efforts were hampered by a cumbersome module embedded within its existing Human Resources Information System (HRIS). While technically functional, this legacy system introduced significant friction into nearly every stage of the hiring process. A primary challenge was the lack of automated communication workflows. Susanne Poole found herself dedicating an inordinate amount of time to manual follow-ups, physically tracking down hiring managers, and repeatedly reminding stakeholders of pending candidate feedback and process statuses. For an HR professional operating solo in a rapidly expanding organization, this administrative overhead was not merely inefficient; it was unsustainable and diverted valuable resources away from strategic initiatives.
Moreover, the previous system severely limited LEAP’s access to a diverse array of job boards. In a globalized talent market, the inability to distribute job postings widely and efficiently across different geographies and specialized platforms posed a significant constraint. This limitation was particularly acute for a company like LEAP, which needed to recruit talent across multiple countries with distinct labor markets and talent pools. The absence of robust, automated communication and broad job distribution meant that the recruitment engine struggled to keep pace with the company’s ambitious growth trajectory. As Susanne Poole articulated, "I needed our recruitment to be much more efficient and I needed it to be able to talk to the recruiting managers around the business instantly. We struggled with our previous system in doing that." This sentiment highlighted the urgent need for a more agile, integrated, and intelligent talent acquisition platform.
The Strategic Pivot: Why Workable Stood Out
In 2018, as LEAP sought to address these critical recruitment inefficiencies, the organization was still in a startup phase, marked by rapid scaling and a keen awareness of budgetary constraints. This ruled out some of the larger, more expensive enterprise platforms that often come with extensive implementation costs and complex user interfaces. However, the decision to seek an alternative was not solely economic. As a technology company, LEAP sought a hiring platform that mirrored its own identity: smart, innovative, and genuinely intuitive. The goal was to find a solution that would not necessitate extensive change management or steep learning curves for hiring managers across six different countries, many of whom were not HR specialists themselves.
Workable quickly distinguished itself during the evaluation process. Its user-friendly interface and modern features resonated deeply with LEAP’s requirements. Susanne Poole noted that "Workable felt like it had its finger on the pulse. It spoke to what we needed and it was just smart. And Workable has always really delivered on that." Key functionalities such as advanced people search capabilities and multi-board job distribution were particularly attractive, especially given LEAP’s need to recruit across diverse geographic locations with varying talent landscapes. The ability to seamlessly manage both UK and US hiring efforts from a single, unified platform, rather than maintaining disparate systems, offered the operational synergy and efficiency that the organization desperately needed.
Seamless Implementation and Widespread Adoption
The transition to Workable proved remarkably straightforward, a critical factor for a company undergoing rapid growth. Susanne Poole orchestrated the rollout by distributing clear learning videos to hiring managers and conducting a minimal number of targeted workshops to onboard teams. The process was notable for its lack of disruption, a significant achievement for a company that had between 500 and 600 employees at the time of implementation. The inherent intuitiveness of the Workable platform was instrumental in facilitating this frictionless adoption. Hiring managers, who often have demanding primary responsibilities beyond recruitment, found the system easy to navigate and understand.
"People weren’t confused by what we were trying to get out of it. They embraced it quickly. I don’t recall this giving us any hiccups," Poole commented, underscoring the platform’s user-centric design. This early and widespread adoption was not accidental; it was a direct consequence of a platform built specifically for individuals who are not professional recruiters, for hiring managers who value efficiency and simplicity. Workable’s ability to meet users where they were, without imposing complex workflows or requiring extensive training, was a cornerstone of its successful integration into LEAP’s global operations.
Tangible Outcomes: A Data-Driven Transformation in Talent Acquisition
The shift to Workable brought about an immediate and quantifiable impact on LEAP’s HR operations, particularly in reclaiming valuable time. During LEAP’s period of rapid scaling, the previous system’s demand for manual chasing, constant reminders, and painstaking coordination of feedback consumed an estimated 20 hours of Susanne Poole’s week. With Workable’s robust automation capabilities, including automated communications, pipeline reminders, and real-time candidate status updates, this significant administrative overhead largely evaporated.
Time Efficiency Reclaimed: 20 Hours Back Weekly
"Easily about 20 hours a week back in 2018. There was so much chasing because we didn’t have a system that spoke to everyone and kept everyone honest," Poole reflected on the immediate benefits. This substantial time saving allowed Poole and her lean HR team to redirect their efforts toward higher-value, strategic work. Instead of administrative drudgery, the focus shifted to enhancing candidate quality, engaging in more profound strategic hiring conversations with department heads, and proactively building a robust talent pipeline. This strategic reallocation of resources was pivotal in enabling the lean HR team to operate effectively at scale and underpin the company’s ambitious growth.
Cultivating a Referral-Driven Talent Pipeline: 100% Internal Hires
Perhaps one of the most striking achievements has been LEAP’s success in internal referrals. Over the past 12 months, an astounding 100% of LEAP’s US hires have been sourced through internal referrals. This figure is not a coincidence but the direct result of a deliberate and highly effective talent strategy, powered by Workable’s integrated referral functionality. Rather than expending resources on mass job board postings and sifting through thousands of applications for operational and support roles, Susanne Poole implemented a considered approach: leveraging the strength of the organization’s existing talent network.
This strategy emphasizes trust in the internal network, using Workable to efficiently manage the referral pipeline and prioritize candidates recommended by current employees who already possess an intrinsic understanding of LEAP’s culture and operational demands. "To the point where I don’t even post the role on the job boards at the moment. We took a very deliberate approach to do the referral piece," Poole stated, highlighting the profound impact of this strategy. For operational and support roles, Workable has consistently delivered a stream of qualified candidates, entirely eliminating the need for costly external recruiter engagement. This cost efficiency, coupled with the proven higher retention rates and better cultural fit often associated with referred hires, compounds significantly over time, particularly for a company expanding steadily across multiple international markets.
Optimized Hiring Cycles and Cost Reduction
Workable’s impact extended to key hiring metrics, establishing consistent and predictable recruitment cycles across LEAP’s global organization. The average time to hire was reduced to just four weeks, signifying a streamlined and efficient process from initial application to offer acceptance. Complementing this, the average time to fill a position, encompassing the entire candidate journey from job posting to the new employee’s start date, was optimized to an average of six weeks. These consistent metrics are crucial for business planning and ensuring that critical roles are filled promptly, minimizing operational disruption.
Furthermore, the elimination of external recruiter spend for operational and support roles represents a significant financial benefit. Recruitment agencies often charge substantial fees, typically a percentage of the new hire’s annual salary, which can quickly accumulate. By enabling LEAP to source qualified candidates directly through Workable’s comprehensive tools, the company has achieved considerable cost savings, demonstrating that effective in-house talent acquisition, supported by the right technology, can negate the dependency on external agencies for specific role categories.
Global Cohesion and Scalability
The adoption of Workable across LEAP’s operations in Australia, the UK, and the US exemplifies its capability as a unified, scalable solution. Managing hiring across six countries and supporting 900 employees from a single platform ensures consistency in recruitment practices, centralizes data, and facilitates cross-border collaboration among hiring teams. This global reach is not merely a convenience; it is a strategic imperative for a multinational company seeking to standardize processes, maintain brand consistency, and gain a holistic view of its talent pipeline across all regions.
Elevating the Candidate Experience: Reliability and Respect
For candidates engaging with LEAP, the implementation of Workable has markedly improved the overall application experience. Automated messaging ensures that every applicant receives timely, professional responses at each stage of the process, regardless of the ultimate outcome. This reliability is paramount in today’s competitive hiring landscape, where the candidate experience directly reflects on an employer’s brand. A positive and respectful experience, even for unsuccessful candidates, contributes to a strong employer reputation.
A favorite feature for Susanne Poole has become Workable’s self-scheduling tool. This functionality eliminates the laborious back-and-forth of manually coordinating calendars across multiple stakeholders and candidates. Instead, candidates are empowered to select interview times that best suit their availability. "Self-scheduling is brilliant. It connects your calendar, you push it out to candidates, they pick a time that suits them. It stops so much unnecessary back and forth. It is a huge time saver and it always works," Poole enthusiastically stated. This not only accelerates the hiring process but also demonstrates a respectful consideration for the candidate’s time, enhancing their overall perception of LEAP.
Fostering Equity: The Strategic Imperative of Anonymized Hiring
One feature that Susanne Poole highlights with particular enthusiasm is Workable’s candidate anonymization capability. For LEAP, which champions diversity as a genuine competitive advantage, the ability to remove identifying information from candidate profiles before they reach hiring managers is more than a compliance measure; it is a strategic commitment to structural fairness. Unconscious bias is an inherent human trait, and even well-intentioned hiring managers can inadvertently gravitate towards candidates who share similar backgrounds or demographics.
Anonymization actively disrupts these unconscious patterns, ensuring that the initial evaluation focuses solely on a candidate’s qualifications, skills, and potential contributions, rather than their apparent identity. "It takes out that unconscious bias thing that we all have, much as we don’t want to have it. Our diversity is definitely our superpower. By anonymizing candidates, you’re just finding the people that have what you need. It is so smart and it was so easy to set up," Poole explained. This strategic choice reinforces LEAP’s dedication to building a diverse workforce, which research consistently shows leads to increased innovation, better problem-solving, and enhanced financial performance.
A Partnership Built on Continuous Innovation: Eight Years and Counting
Beyond individual features, what Susanne Poole values most is Workable’s consistent evolution and commitment to innovation. The platform LEAP signed with in 2018 has undergone significant enhancements and additions, reflecting Workable’s responsiveness to the dynamic needs of the HR tech landscape. "The innovation that has come out of Workable, I can’t keep up with it. The Workable we had in 2018 is completely different to the Workable we have now, and that is how it should be," Poole remarked.
For a technology company like LEAP, partnering with a hiring platform that continuously innovates is not merely a preference; it is a fundamental requirement. The ability to adapt to new recruitment challenges, leverage emerging technologies, and continuously improve user experience is critical for maintaining a competitive edge in talent acquisition. LEAP has found such a partner in Workable, and after eight years, the relationship remains strong, demonstrating a successful synergy between an expanding legal tech firm and its core talent acquisition technology provider.
Broader Implications for Modern HR and Global Talent Acquisition
LEAP Legal Software’s journey with Workable offers significant insights for other organizations grappling with the complexities of modern talent acquisition. The case highlights that even lean HR teams can achieve exceptional results and manage global hiring at scale with the right technological infrastructure. The strategic pivot towards a referral-driven model, facilitated by integrated ATS functionalities, showcases a powerful alternative to traditional recruitment channels, leading to higher quality hires and substantial cost savings.
Moreover, the emphasis on candidate experience and the proactive integration of features like anonymized hiring underscore a growing recognition of HR’s role in brand building and fostering equitable workplaces. In an era where talent is a primary differentiator, investing in intuitive, innovative, and ethically conscious recruitment technology is no longer optional but a strategic imperative. LEAP Legal Software’s experience serves as a compelling testament to the transformative power of a well-chosen HR technology partner in navigating the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the global talent market.
