The McCormick Group held its inaugural Washington Lateral Partner Recruiting Roundtable last month. Following a format that we first introduced in Boston in 2013, we moderated a free-flowing discussion where representatives of 15 firms shared ideas and best practices. Attendees ranged from law firm partners to law firm business development personnel to law firm recruiting directors. All of our participants agreed that it is challenging to build an office on the strength of lateral partner hires, mostly due to the difficulty in assessing how much risk to take in bringing on new partners. Here are some of the takeaways:
- Few firms are comprehensively evaluating the success of their lateral hiring efforts. Some are tracking success rates of hires on an overall basis, but most were not doing empirical analysis of factors for success or failure.
- One way some firms choose to deal with both the uncertainty of each lateral’s financial viability as well as the time and effort expended on lateral hiring is to ask potential laterals to fill out their lateral partner questionnaire as soon as possible during the recruiting process. They felt this allowed them to quickly see if the metrics of the practice could work on their platforms. Additionally, they felt it allowed for a greater degree of responsiveness from the firm’s current partners.
- In contrast, several law firm representatives warned that firms need to be cautious about scaring away candidates too early in the process, particularly when the lateral is a “target of interest” that was approached proactively by the firm.
- In either event, the participants regarded a deeper dive into the data provided in the LPQ as one way to minimize chances of a mistake. This included consideration of things beyond the pure numbers, such as the nature and history of the potential lateral’s client relationships, what other supporting practices and lawyers were involved, and how they might be supported at the new firm.
- Firms expressed general disappointment with the due diligence handled by headhunters prior to presenting candidates. They want recruiters to do a better job of vetting candidates, both with regard to historical data and projections.
- Most firms have partner integration procedures in place. However, most indicated that those programs were not triggered during the lateral hiring process, so as to anticipate how well potential laterals would be aligned to the firm’s existing partners and clients.
At the end of the session, the participants expressed a desire to continue the discussions on a regular basis, and TMG will be organizing those meetings. TMG will also be holding similar roundtables in other cities in upcoming months.
For more information on lateral partner recruiting, contact | Steve Nelson
