Page 66 - MASTER COPY LEADERS BOOK 9editedJKK (24)_Neat
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Leaders in Legal Business
2. Save money: The cost of hiring mistakes often exceeds the annual salary of the person hired. The fees
for a legal recruiter are relatively modest in comparison. A successful recruiter should find candidates of
the highest quality who match specific needs and efficiently complete the placement, making the search
cost effective.
3. Save valuable time: Time spent by a company’s or firm’s internal team directing a search is time lost on
other important business tasks. Legal recruiting and staffing by an outside professional saves valuable
time, considerable effort, and the associated costs of internal resources.
4. Minimize hiring mistakes: The right fit is critical to business objectives and company culture. High-
quality legal recruiters and staffing consultants who know the legal market intimately are able to look
beyond the resume, providing frank assessments of potential candidates.
5. Ensure that your offer is competitive: The market changes rapidly. Legal recruiting and staffing firms
should work with clients (companies or law firms) to ensure the compensation package is competitive
and will attract the right candidates.
Law firm partners and associates utilize a recruiter to assist in assessing the market of firms that might be
a good fit; to provide information about the firms’ cultures, finances, practices, and other pluses and minuses; to
serve as an intermediary throughout what can sometimes seem like an interminable recruiting process; and (in
appropriate instances) to help in negotiating aspects of the lateral’s compensation package.
For partners, this process often includes the recruiter’s assistance in fashioning a business plan to help
firms evaluate how a lateral can be accretive and help advance the firm’s long-term strategic goals. An
experienced recruiter familiar with client firms can also provide critical information about issues such as capital
contributions, pension arrangements, partner compensation systems,2 lease obligations, potential client conflicts,
and the like.
As noted in MLA’s most recent Lateral Partner Satisfaction Survey,3 partners who used the services of a
recruiter when changing firms had significantly higher rates of satisfaction with their move than those who did
not, especially when the search consultant had:
Analyzed the fit between their client base/practice area and the firm’s;
Acted as intermediary or otherwise assisted in negotiations; and
Provided detailed information about potential firms.
Partners who worked with recruiters were also more likely to review a firm’s financials before moving
than those who moved without assistance.4 For both groups, however, the percentage doing thorough due
diligence before investing their futures and their capital in a new partnership was shockingly low.
Keeping the Keepers III: Mobility & Management of Associate Talent, a national study and report of law
firm associate hiring and retention from 2006–2011, includes findings from more than 22,000 associate hires and
more than 17,000 associate departures. The report finds that very few firms anticipate changes in non-partner
recruiting budgets or the number of administrative staff who are dedicated to non-partner recruiting within the
next two years. At the same time, however, a significant number of participating law firms (56 percent) reported
an expected increase in lateral hiring within the next 24 months.5
The report’s supplemental study of 85 law firm administrators (taken during the fall of 2012) found that
search firms, internal referrals, and online searches or solicitations initiated by the firm accounted for the largest
2 Jeffrey A. Lowe, 2014 Partner Compensation Survey, MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA, 2014,
http://www.mlaglobal.com/~/media/Allegis/MLAGlobal/Files/Partner%20Compensation%20Survey/2014/PCS_2014_Web_091214_FINAL.pdf.
3 Jon Lindsey & Jeffrey A. Lowe, Lateral Partner Satisfaction Survey, MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA, March 2014,
http://www.mlaglobal.com/~/media/Allegis/MLAGlobal/Files/Articles/LateralPartnerSatisfactionSurvey_2013_MLA_Web.pdf.
4 Id. at 42.
5 Keeping the Keepers III: Mobility & Management of Associate Talent, MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA & THE NALP FOUNDATION, 2014, at 16
59
2. Save money: The cost of hiring mistakes often exceeds the annual salary of the person hired. The fees
for a legal recruiter are relatively modest in comparison. A successful recruiter should find candidates of
the highest quality who match specific needs and efficiently complete the placement, making the search
cost effective.
3. Save valuable time: Time spent by a company’s or firm’s internal team directing a search is time lost on
other important business tasks. Legal recruiting and staffing by an outside professional saves valuable
time, considerable effort, and the associated costs of internal resources.
4. Minimize hiring mistakes: The right fit is critical to business objectives and company culture. High-
quality legal recruiters and staffing consultants who know the legal market intimately are able to look
beyond the resume, providing frank assessments of potential candidates.
5. Ensure that your offer is competitive: The market changes rapidly. Legal recruiting and staffing firms
should work with clients (companies or law firms) to ensure the compensation package is competitive
and will attract the right candidates.
Law firm partners and associates utilize a recruiter to assist in assessing the market of firms that might be
a good fit; to provide information about the firms’ cultures, finances, practices, and other pluses and minuses; to
serve as an intermediary throughout what can sometimes seem like an interminable recruiting process; and (in
appropriate instances) to help in negotiating aspects of the lateral’s compensation package.
For partners, this process often includes the recruiter’s assistance in fashioning a business plan to help
firms evaluate how a lateral can be accretive and help advance the firm’s long-term strategic goals. An
experienced recruiter familiar with client firms can also provide critical information about issues such as capital
contributions, pension arrangements, partner compensation systems,2 lease obligations, potential client conflicts,
and the like.
As noted in MLA’s most recent Lateral Partner Satisfaction Survey,3 partners who used the services of a
recruiter when changing firms had significantly higher rates of satisfaction with their move than those who did
not, especially when the search consultant had:
Analyzed the fit between their client base/practice area and the firm’s;
Acted as intermediary or otherwise assisted in negotiations; and
Provided detailed information about potential firms.
Partners who worked with recruiters were also more likely to review a firm’s financials before moving
than those who moved without assistance.4 For both groups, however, the percentage doing thorough due
diligence before investing their futures and their capital in a new partnership was shockingly low.
Keeping the Keepers III: Mobility & Management of Associate Talent, a national study and report of law
firm associate hiring and retention from 2006–2011, includes findings from more than 22,000 associate hires and
more than 17,000 associate departures. The report finds that very few firms anticipate changes in non-partner
recruiting budgets or the number of administrative staff who are dedicated to non-partner recruiting within the
next two years. At the same time, however, a significant number of participating law firms (56 percent) reported
an expected increase in lateral hiring within the next 24 months.5
The report’s supplemental study of 85 law firm administrators (taken during the fall of 2012) found that
search firms, internal referrals, and online searches or solicitations initiated by the firm accounted for the largest
2 Jeffrey A. Lowe, 2014 Partner Compensation Survey, MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA, 2014,
http://www.mlaglobal.com/~/media/Allegis/MLAGlobal/Files/Partner%20Compensation%20Survey/2014/PCS_2014_Web_091214_FINAL.pdf.
3 Jon Lindsey & Jeffrey A. Lowe, Lateral Partner Satisfaction Survey, MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA, March 2014,
http://www.mlaglobal.com/~/media/Allegis/MLAGlobal/Files/Articles/LateralPartnerSatisfactionSurvey_2013_MLA_Web.pdf.
4 Id. at 42.
5 Keeping the Keepers III: Mobility & Management of Associate Talent, MAJOR, LINDSEY & AFRICA & THE NALP FOUNDATION, 2014, at 16
59
