Associate Placements in a Metro Suburb

Problem

A rapidly expanding firm with a specialty data privacy practice located in a metropolitan suburb needed to hire numerous Associates with relevant experience to capture billings in a short period of time.

Objectives

JSL Legal Search Group was tasked with finding at least four associates with data privacy experience in a geographic market with a limited number of potential qualified candidates.

Solution

Faced with a hard deadline in less than six months, the firm decided to retain us to help solve the challenges of attracting, evaluating and acquiring the right lateral partner candidates.

Our first step was to sit down with firm management over the course of three meetings to understand and evaluate the challenges, educate the management team on the current conditions of the lateral hiring market and create a plan together that would allow them to meet their goal of growing revenue through talent acquisition.

This consulting process led to a revised compensation plan for lateral partners that was fiscally responsible but very attractive to prospective candidates. Additionally, we implemented an interview process that balanced the two primary components of any lateral hiring process: attracting and evaluating. Our process also ensured that both components would be completed in a timely manner to meet the firm’s critical deadline.

Once we had the recruiting process and infrastructure in place, our team was able to identify 344 candidates who fit our client’s needs. We shared this list with our client’s leadership team, soliciting important feedback on individuals they had interacted with in the past and gathering valuable information to help ignite conversations with candidates. In such a small family law community, it was important that each candidate we connected with knew that they weren’t just another cold call. We then proceeded to systematically reach out each candidate on the list. Each potential candidate was presented with a compelling message about why our client was conducting the search and how each candidate’s practice would fit on our client’s platform.

This process led to a total of seven qualified candidates interviewing within 85 days of starting the process. Combined, these seven candidates carried a total of $5.1 million in family law originations that were portable.

Outcome

Five of the attorneys that we identified were hired by the firm in a four-month period. The firm was pleased with the outcome of our Associate search and has continued to work with us to fill some of their other open positions, including a key leadership position.