By Neil Handwerker, Managing Partner, New York Legal
It is all about time. Recruiting firms assess on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. There are several ways to maximize your relationships with search firms and effectively find the attorneys you want. Speed to placement is a key factor.
Let's assume several law firms are looking for the same candidate to fill the same type of position. How can you propel the recruiting process? The following factors all go to speed to placement. The more elements in place, the greater the chance your search is a priority.
1. Is there a defined need?
Does the firm have a defined need? Contrast a firm that has recently lost its bankruptcy department and needs a partner with a firm that is always looking for bankruptcy attorneys. Actual openings are much more attractive.
2. Has the law firm committed to efficiently meeting that need?
Key partners—such as the managing partner, practice group head, office managing partner, and/or other influential partners—should all agree that there is a need to bring aboard an attorney and should make themselves accessible to candidates immediately.
3. Are the people influential to the search available to potential candidates?
When trying to recruit lateral partners, people deemed "important" should meet candidates. The following two recent, actual examples help validate this point.
Law Firm A is based in the Southeast. It has been trying to grow its New York office with little success. When asked if firm leadership spends much time in New York, the firm explains that the managing partner visits the New York office a couple of times a year. Laterals the firm is interested in will be flown in to meet the managing partner at a convenient time.
Law Firm B is based in the Midwest. It has been trying to grow it New York office. The managing partner keeps an office in New York because he wants to be directly involved in building that office. When the candidates are presented, the managing partner will arrange his schedule to be in New York in order to meet appropriate candidates.
4. Can attorneys sell their firm?
Be passionate and positive about your firm. It is critical that the law firm choose the appropriate attorneys in the right order to speak with the candidates. Attorneys who like where they work will know the selling points of their firm and how to relay these points. The example of the jaded associate who tells prospective candidates how he/she really feels about the place is all too common.
5. How much information is available on the firm and particular practice groups?
Public and inside knowledge can help determine who are the appropriate candidates and assist in preparing potential questions and potential objections from candidates. Beyond items like profits per partner and revenue per lawyer, it is important to share the details. Examples: What is the capital contribution? How much would a 46-year-old IP partner with $3 million in business be paid? Why did the Miami office fail? Why did the leader of the tax group just leave the firm?
It is no secret that the most successful firms in the lateral marketplace have documents specifically put together for prospective laterals. Recruiters are supplied with this material and encouraged to share it early on in the process, when they are selling the firm to attorneys that have an interest in learning more. Information in these kinds of documents can include everything from a list of the top-50 clients by revenue to a breakdown of the firm's compensation system.
6. How streamlined is the hiring process once a candidate is identified?
This question is directed more toward partner placements. Most law firms have a fairly quick process when it comes to associates. For partners, it can be quite a different story. Some firms with great practices and excellent stories may be slow to hire a partner who is actually wanted. Law firms where the lateral process is prepared, predictable, and streamlined from interview to hire have the greatest chance of a successful recruiting process.
7. Is there an exchange of business plans between the law firm and the candidate in the process?
The focus is again on partners. While a partner candidate is almost always required to supply prospective new homes with a business plan, law firms vary widely on how much information they in turn supply to candidates on how their firms will help the candidate build his/her business. These law firms involve partners not only from the lateral's practice area, but also related practice areas in order to plan out how they will help that partner to leverage his/her practice. As a result, partners in play get a much greater sense of commitment from their law firm. This is a tremendous aid in the decision-making process, which can help speed to placement.
8. Does the law firm have a good story to tell? Is it a hot firm or a hunting ground?
The ever-increasing number of "business of law" publications, websites, guides, and legal trades makes it easy to identify law firms that appear to be attracting attorneys and those firms where attorneys appear to be bailing out. Everyone likes a winner. It is easier for search firms to recruit when the firm being mentioned to cold-called prospects is perceived as being hot—a place that is attracting top laterals, not losing them.
9. How many search firms are working on the search?
An ideal search for most legal recruiting firms is "exclusive." The firm has no need to worry about competition; and when calling prospects, it can add the sizzle of working on an exclusive. The more search firms that have the same job order, the less motivated those search firms are going to be to try to fill that position. However, when a particular law firm is very hot and attracting great laterals and it wants to continue building, a recruiting firm is going to be less concerned with competition with other recruiting firms.
10. What is the fee structure?
A general rule is any law firm offering below 25 percent of first year's compensation on the placement of an attorney is not going to get much play from recruiters. Though 25 percent remains standard, a growing number of firms are offering 30 percent because the market for top talent is now so competitive. Thirty-five percent is not unheard of on searches acknowledged to be very difficult. If a law firm is willing to offer an incentive to the recruiting firm, it can expect a greater level of attention.
11. Is the law firm easy to deal with?
Life truly is too short. Recruiting firms and candidates prefer to work with organizations that will treat them as professionals engaged in a difficult and important task.
LawCrossing is a great site. I ended up landing a position at the Attorney General's Office. Kristin
Facts
LawCrossing Fact #187: We continuously expand our job database by relentlessly monitoring thousands of employer websites, job boards, and trade-organization websites.
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