This is the second of a series of articles based on the recent DC Legal Market Briefing, held on September 20 by Sandpiper Partners and co-sponsored by The McCormick Group. Our earlier article addressed the decline in the importance of portable business. 

 

At first blush, you might not think issues in succession planning, and the challenges therein, had any intersection with recruiting laterals with portable books of business. But you’d be wrong.  While almost every firm represented on the Managing Partners panel (and we’re willing to venture just about every firm present in the audience) had a concern with succession planning, not many linked the solution to doing away with a requirement for portable business. And while we are getting increasing requests from law firms to hire key lawyers to play a successor role, they usually include a requirement for portable business as part of the necessary attributes for stepping into the role.

There are two reasons this requirement is problematic.  For succession planning to work efficiently, the incoming practitioner needs to have both the skill and the bandwidth to handle the care and feeding of the clients who will be inherited from the retiring partner. Portable book is often taken as a marker for skill, in lawyering and in client development. That in many cases is true, but the portability of the book isn’t the only marker. Portability could be affected by a range of reasons unrelated to lawyer performance; including trends towards greater institutionalization of clients and the narrowing of some companies’ preferred legal provider lists. More importantly, a large portable client base may actually work against the interest of the soon to be inherited clients. That’s where the issue of bandwidth comes into play. A lawyer with an already full plate will have difficulty taking on even more clients and may not be the ideal player in a succession plan.

Moreover, the well-established partner at another firm is less likely to be interested in a move solely to take over a practice at a new firm. These people are typically the most satisfied with their current firm and the support they receive. They are likely to see little incentive for the move, but calculate the risk and stress as high, as they often feel like they have to prove themselves all over again.

So, back to our big firms at the conference who said “just bring us the talent.” Firms who can put aside the immediate gain of a lateral’s book in favor of the long-term look at talent and potential will be able to focus on the lateral who best aligns with the strategic goals of the firm, the practice and even the succession plan. These firms give themselves an advantage in going after the best and the brightest, regardless of the amount of business that follows them. As firms in general continue to institutionalize clients, and clients continue to limit the number of firms who work for them, hiring the best available athlete may often be the best long-term strategy generally, and the wise way to ensure effective succession planning.
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