We seldom run into anyone with an arcane specialty in law partner recruitment, so it was with considerable anticipation that we met with Dan Lewis, who focuses on law partner placement exclusively and has become one of the acknowledged best in this rare line of work. Dan's a native New Yorker, married with one child and a graduate of Hunter College who has been in the Los Angeles area for the last 16 years. He's with BCG Attorney Search, the nation's largest recruitment firm devoted exclusively to attorney placement in private firms. When asked how he got into this niche aspect of the placement business, he smiled. "I just sort of fell into it after college," he answered. "I started doing recruiting of business consultants for companies such as Accenture, McKenzie and IBM. After a couple of years of this, it was easy enough to make a sideways move into attorney placement as the compensation level as the career arc is comparable for both business consultants and attorneys. As for partner placement, that was an outgrowth of my earlier experience. As a long-term growth strategy for myself, I wanted to refine my skills in an area where I saw promise and felt I could innovate and contribute." "And law partner placement was that niche area," we offered. "Right. But what I soon learned was that considerable patience is required, that much on-going research of the market was necessary to include which firm had a strength or weakness in which particular practice area, who was not getting along with whom, and the like. When you move a partner, you are moving an entire line of business, and that creates a ripple effect. There are a lot of complexities involved with this. For example, a partner is initially attractive because of the amount of portable billings they have. There may be key associates he or she wants to bring along. Some of the portable business may cause potential conflicts. There is almost always more than one individual in the acquiring firm to deal with, and each may have different takes on what the compensation should be and other matters, some of them seemingly unimportant to everyone but the individual raising them. Then there are innumerable timing issues and, as it so often happens, at the last moment someone or something can throw a monkey wrench into the deal." "Can you give some examples?" "Sure. Maybe the partner who's going to move is suddenly served with divorce by his wife, a child or parent gets sick or an acquiring partner suddenly gets cold feet. You never know. Because of these and other often untoward complexities, it can and often does take a year or more to put together a partner move. I love the work, don't get me wrong, but it can be frustrating at times." "Based on your 16 years of experience working with associates and partners, can you offer any advice for our readers, especially those who are not partners?" "Sure. But first some observations, and they can, for purposes of illustration, be summed up by how I would advise a 2nd-year associate, which differs from what I might say to a 5th-year associate. These two vantage points represent two distinct and important stages of an attorney's career development and are necessary to understand. "For example, the 2nd-year attorney tends to be too trusting, or, as we say in the trade, 'He's drunk too much Kool-Aid.' What's meant by this is that he has indiscriminately swallowed the propaganda his firm puts out about benefits packages, its caring nature and the like. What the attorney does not realize is that running a law firm is a business and business considerations almost always take precedence over the needs of an individual. In my opinion, and I admit to being biased, an attorney owes ultimate loyalty to his or her career and not to any particular firm. If the firm and the attorney are comfortable with each other, fine. But either can break the contract almost at will. Young attorneys need to keep this in mind and plan accordingly." "What is it about the 5th-year vantage point that is any different from the advice you'd give to a 2nd-year?" "Fifth-years must realize that they are at a crossroads and that if they miss a rapidly closing window of opportunity they could relatively quickly find themselves as a 9th- or 10th-year associate either with no partnership on the horizon or the possibility of a partnership they do not want." "You're telling us that attorneys turn down partnerships?" "It happens all the time. An attorney acquires a wife and 2.3 children, a nice suburban house, a comfortable life style and, if he becomes a partner, his hours and stress will most probably increase and the nice life style will be only for spouse and children. Sure, I've seen attorneys turn down partnerships. As a corollary, this often means these partners have to leave the firm they're with." Can I sum up by saying that it is your recommendation to not let your firm convince you that you'll be taken care of for the rest of your life? "Certainly that would be one very useful piece of advice. But a broader and more general piece of advice is to do your own strategic planning for yourself and never let some one else do that for you. You must think long-term and constantly take time to re-assess where you are and what you want out of life in the future. You should never lock into a plan early in life and stick to it come hell or high water. "For instance, at the beginning of your career, let's say you have the choice of going with a friend's dad's firm of six attorneys or with a big international firm like Paul Hastings as just one example. If you go with the small firm, your options are limited. If you go with a large firm like Paul Hastings, your options are almost limitless because of the broad exposure you get to law practiced at the highest level, with big and demanding clients, big problems and lots of great training from a lot of different attorneys from a lot of different practice areas. Yet, people will opt for the job with limited upside because they haven't thought the matter through. "Finally, grades, class ranking and the quality of the law school are paramount and to some degree these pre-determine more legal careers than one might think. On the other hand, I've had my share of candidates from 2nd and 3rd-tier law schools who through hard work stand out and do well. Yet, sadly, there is no getting around school and grades. I've had complicated partner placements well along in development when, to my surprise, the acquiring firm, presumably willing to pay a prospective partner upwards of $1 million annually, asks for the partner's law school grade transcript. I've even had a deal fail because this partner, who was bringing in over $3 million annually to his firm, had mediocre law school grades. Sounds stupid, I know, but it happened." With that story, we thanked Dan Lewis for his time and asked how his year was going. "Can't provide details, obviously," he said, "But the economy has improved markedly in just the last three months, if that tells you anything." We asked Dan if he had any last words you wish to leave with our LawCrossing audience. "Persevere," Dan said. "The law's a great field. There are always opportunities."

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