In a testament to strategic human resources innovation and technological adoption, LEAP Legal Software, a global leader in cloud-based legal practice management solutions, has fundamentally transformed its talent acquisition framework. Through an eight-year partnership with Workable, a prominent applicant tracking system (ATS), LEAP has achieved remarkable efficiencies, including approximately 20 hours saved per week during peak hiring periods, a staggering 100% internal referral rate for its US hires over the past year, and the complete elimination of external recruiter spend for operational and support roles. This strategic shift underscores a broader trend within rapidly scaling technology companies to leverage intuitive platforms for building robust, high-quality talent pipelines globally.
The Genesis of a Global Challenge: Scaling Talent in a Competitive Landscape
Founded more than three decades ago in Australia, LEAP Legal Software has evolved from an innovative startup into a formidable international enterprise. Specializing in cloud-based legal practice management solutions tailored for small law firms, the company boasts a significant global footprint with offices spanning Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, employing approximately 900 individuals worldwide. This trajectory of sustained growth, particularly within the dynamic technology sector, inevitably presented considerable challenges for its talent acquisition functions.
Before 2018, LEAP’s hiring processes were managed through an embedded module within its existing Human Resources Information System (HRIS). While technically functional, this system proved cumbersome and inefficient, particularly for Susanne Poole, who oversees all aspects of people, recruitment, and culture for LEAP’s US arm. Her responsibilities encompassed critical support, sales, client success, and implementation roles. Operating often as a "team of one," Poole faced the arduous task of keeping the hiring engine running while simultaneously managing a myriad of other HR duties. The incumbent system lacked the automated communication capabilities crucial for a fast-paced environment, forcing Poole into a constant cycle of manually tracking down hiring managers, sending repeated follow-ups, and reminding stakeholders of candidate statuses. This administrative burden, consuming vast amounts of valuable time, became unsustainable as the company scaled rapidly. Furthermore, the system’s limited job board access constrained LEAP’s ability to distribute postings widely and effectively, a particularly acute problem for a business operating across multiple international markets with diverse talent pools. As Poole herself 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."
The Strategic Pivot: Identifying a Modern Talent Acquisition Partner
Recognizing the urgent need for a more agile and technologically advanced solution, LEAP initiated a search for an alternative applicant tracking system in 2018. At this juncture, the organization, while rapidly scaling, still operated with a startup mentality, making price a significant consideration. This factor effectively ruled out many of the larger, more expensive enterprise-grade platforms. However, the decision extended beyond mere economics; LEAP, as a technology company, sought a hiring platform that mirrored its own identity: smart, innovative, and inherently intuitive. The chosen solution needed to facilitate seamless adoption across its globally dispersed teams without necessitating extensive change management or steep learning curves for hiring managers who already had demanding primary roles.
Workable quickly emerged as a frontrunner during the evaluation process. Its demonstration immediately resonated with LEAP’s requirements, presenting a platform that felt "on the pulse" of modern recruitment. Poole noted, "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 features that distinguished Workable included its robust people search functionality and multi-board job distribution capabilities. These were particularly vital given LEAP’s imperative to recruit across diverse geographies, each with distinct talent pools and regulatory environments. The ability to manage both UK and US hiring operations from a single, unified platform, rather than relying on disparate or parallel systems, offered a streamlined and efficient solution perfectly aligned with the organization’s global ambitions.
Seamless Implementation and Widespread Adoption Across Continents
The implementation of Workable across LEAP’s global operations proved remarkably straightforward, a critical factor for any enterprise technology rollout. Susanne Poole facilitated the transition by distributing informative learning videos to hiring managers and conducting a limited number of targeted workshops to onboard teams. This approach resulted in a virtually frictionless rollout, avoiding the significant disruptions often associated with new software deployments, especially within an organization that numbered between 500 and 600 employees at the time. The inherent intuitiveness of the Workable platform was instrumental in this success. "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 recounted. This rapid and widespread adoption was not accidental; it was a direct consequence of Workable’s design philosophy, crafted for use by individuals who are primarily hiring managers, not professional recruiters, and who possess minimal patience for complex or unwieldy software. Workable effectively met users where they were, ensuring accessibility and ease of use.
Quantifiable Impact: A Return of Time, Efficiency, and Strategic Savings
The most immediate and tangible benefit realized by LEAP following the adoption of Workable was a dramatic recapture of time. During LEAP’s period of rapid scaling in 2018, the previous system’s deficiencies had created an enormous administrative overhead, with Poole dedicating countless hours each week to manual chasing, reminding, and coordinating feedback. Workable’s automated communication features, including pipeline reminders and real-time candidate status updates, largely eliminated this burden. Poole estimated that the platform gave her back "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." This substantial time saving allowed Poole and her team to redirect their efforts toward higher-value, strategic HR initiatives, such as enhancing candidate quality, engaging in more meaningful hiring conversations, and proactively building a robust talent pipeline.
The efficiency gains extended significantly to core hiring metrics. LEAP now boasts an average time to hire of 4 weeks and an average time to fill of 6 weeks. To put this into perspective, industry benchmarks for time to hire in the tech sector typically range from 30 to 45 days (approximately 4.5 to 6.5 weeks), and time to fill can often exceed 60 days (nearly 9 weeks) for specialized roles. LEAP’s metrics demonstrate a highly optimized and predictable hiring cycle, a critical advantage for a global organization. This consistent performance ensures that vital roles are filled swiftly, minimizing operational gaps and maintaining business momentum.
Perhaps one of the most compelling financial impacts has been the complete elimination of external recruiter spend for operational and support roles. External recruitment agencies typically charge a significant percentage of a hired candidate’s annual salary, often ranging from 20% to 30%. For a growing company like LEAP, which continuously recruits for these foundational positions across multiple markets, these fees can quickly accumulate into substantial costs. Workable has consistently delivered a sufficient volume of qualified candidates directly, allowing LEAP to reduce its dependency on third-party agencies. This cost efficiency compounds over time, directly contributing to the company’s bottom line and freeing up resources for other strategic investments.
A Deliberate Referral Strategy: Powering Quality and Cultural Fit
One of the most impressive outcomes of LEAP’s partnership with Workable is the complete transformation of its talent sourcing strategy. Over the past 12 months, 100% of LEAP’s US hires have originated from internal referrals. This figure is not coincidental; it represents a meticulously crafted talent strategy predicated on leveraging the strength of the organization’s existing workforce and facilitated by Workable’s robust referral functionality. Rather than indiscriminately flooding job boards with postings and sifting through thousands of applications for critical support roles, Susanne Poole has adopted a highly considered and targeted approach: trust the internal network, utilize Workable to manage the referral pipeline efficiently, and prioritize candidates who come highly recommended by employees who already understand and embody the organization’s culture and values.
Poole emphasized this deliberate shift, stating, "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." This strategy yields numerous benefits. Referred candidates typically exhibit higher quality, stronger cultural fit, and often have lower turnover rates compared to those sourced through traditional channels. They are also, critically, less expensive to acquire. For operational and support roles, Workable has proven its capability to consistently deliver qualified candidates without the need for costly external recruiters, leading to compounding cost efficiencies for a company steadily expanding across multiple international markets.
Elevating the Candidate Experience: Reliability and Respect
Beyond internal efficiencies, LEAP’s implementation of Workable has profoundly enhanced the candidate experience. The platform’s automated messaging capabilities ensure that every applicant receives timely and professional communication at each stage of the hiring process, regardless of the ultimate outcome. This reliability is paramount in a highly competitive hiring market, where the candidate experience directly reflects the employer brand. LEAP, a company that prioritizes both, ensures that no candidate "falls through the cracks."
One of Susanne Poole’s favored features, the self-scheduling tool, exemplifies this commitment to a respectful and efficient candidate journey. Instead of the cumbersome manual coordination of calendars across multiple stakeholders, candidates are empowered to select interview times that best suit their own schedules. This eliminates the frustrating back-and-forth communication, accelerates the process, and signals a profound respect for the candidate’s time and autonomy. Poole lauded its effectiveness: "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."
Fostering Structural Fairness: The Strategic Imperative of Anonymized Candidates
In a company that strategically views diversity as a core competitive advantage, Workable’s candidate anonymization feature stands out as particularly impactful. Susanne Poole highlights this functionality with considerable enthusiasm, emphasizing that for LEAP, the ability to remove identifying information from candidate profiles before they reach hiring managers transcends mere compliance; it is a fundamental strategic choice.
Unconscious bias is an inherent human tendency. Well-intentioned hiring managers, often unwittingly, may gravitate towards candidates who mirror their own backgrounds or characteristics. Anonymization acts as a crucial disruptor to this pattern, ensuring that the initial evaluation by a decision-maker is based purely on a candidate’s qualifications, skills, and potential contributions, rather than their perceived identity. This structural approach to fairness promotes true meritocracy in hiring, broadening the talent pool and fostering a more diverse workforce. "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 articulated, underscoring its strategic value.
Eight Years of Innovation: A Partnership Rooted in Continuous Evolution
A critical aspect of the enduring success of the LEAP-Workable partnership is the latter’s commitment to continuous innovation. Susanne Poole values this evolutionary trajectory as much as any individual feature, noting that the Workable platform she adopted in 2018 is meaningfully different—and significantly improved—from the platform she utilizes today. "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," she observed.
For a technology company like LEAP, operating at the forefront of legal tech, partnering with a hiring platform that consistently innovates is not merely a preference; it is an absolute requirement. This ensures that their talent acquisition strategies remain cutting-edge, adaptable to evolving market dynamics, and capable of attracting the best talent. The eight-year relationship between LEAP Legal Software and Workable exemplifies a successful synergy, demonstrating how strategic technology adoption can empower HR teams, drive significant operational efficiencies, and cultivate a robust, diverse, and high-quality global workforce. The partnership shows no sign of waning, poised to continue supporting LEAP’s growth and talent objectives well into the future.
