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Recruitment is key for law firms. They still suck at it
Posted 2/06/2008 by Alex Novarese
Given that law firms spend large amounts of money on recruitment and are obsessed with attracting the best staff, one of the most consistently surprising things about their hiring is that they’re so bad at it.
Once, when the lateral partner market first fired up in earnest in the 1990s, the logic was that it was because they didn’t go through rigorous procedures. But that’s harder to argue now in an age when law firms can spend the best part of a year interviewing senior candidates and are generally very experienced at senior-level recruitment.
Yet in any one year in the City you’ll see a good handful of senior hires that are breathtakingly ill-conceived. 'Bad' in these cases can mean a number of things, referring sometimes simply to good lawyers with no cultural fit with their new employer or being the wrong personality type for the task at hand.
The obvious example is the good technical lawyer or magic circle ‘account handler’ drafted in by a US law firm to build a team - a job such recruits are usually ill-suited to. In the reverse dynamic, you have high-achieving, individualistic partners recruited into conservative environments in which they will obviously feel stifled.
Another regular school of mis-recruitment is the ever-popular over-hiring, where you get someone of excessive seniority and pedigree when the hiring firm would have been better off spreading the cash on a handful of up-and-comers that are less set in their ways. This is the ‘Nigel Boardman and a dog’ school of recruitment and it never goes out of style.
But that’s just the standard square-peg-in-round-hole type of mis-hire. There’s also a rich seam of chancers, time-wasters, burn-outs and the plain bored on the transfer market. And within this circle there’s a hardened sub-group that have such serious problems that it’s a miracle they made it past the first lunch or interview, let alone got a lucrative new equity partnership.
These are the cases in which the failure is not to do with lack of due diligence, more a complete collapse of common sense. These people always get recruited on the basis that they tick a big dumb box, which usually revolves around their current firm and practice area.
I have even on occasion offered to make a few enquires around the market for managing partners as a professional courtesy before they commit to yet another dodgy hire but they never take me up on it. I guess they feel it’s an embarrassing request. And I guess they’re right.
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Comments
In response to Anonymous Recruiter, you’re perfectly entitled to say that the article carries no credibility without specific examples but, given the nature of British libel laws, providing specific examples (and I do have them) is not realistic for a working journalist. So basically readers will have to make up their own minds if I have the necessary connections, experience and ability to write with credibility. To Mr Lacey, I agree that many firms have set up sophisticated processes for recruitment and, to be fair, the gap between law firms that are skilled senior recruiters and those that are generally terrible is considerable. But in my experience it’s surprising how often these processes fail to ensure that common sense prevails when making a hire.
Posted by Alex Novarese | 11/06/2008
Alex, you have hit the nail on the head.
Posted by ANON | 4/06/2008
This article doesn't carry any credibility at all without specific examples. Can you identify some please.
Another Anonymous Recruiter
Posted by Anonymous | 3/06/2008
This assumes that law firms are bungling incompetents at worst. What about the manipulative tactics used by law firms to recruit staff? Such as the department that recruited a fee earner as a 'reserve' because they were scared that the current juniors of the team would disperse leaving the partners/associates with all the work.
When said prediction didn't materialise, the newbie was dismissed. Surplus to needs (that wasn't the reason given of course).
Posted by Dan | 3/06/2008
Law firms (one in particular who shall remain nameless) also seem incapable of actually providing feedback on candidates who they have asked you to headhunt for them, dragged in for interview after interview and then cannot make a decision on due to "internal discussions" which boil down to lack of communication within the Partnership.
Posted by Anonymous Recruiter | 3/06/2008
Personally, I would have to disagree with your artcle which I found, in fairness, to be rather basic in its content. Given the sophistication of senior hires and the rigourous attention it receives from both parties (which can take significant meetings - I have known one to take over 15 meetings - and the production of detailed business plans etc) I would state that hiring firms are significantly savvy in this area. Cultural issues that you refer too are high on the agenda and only misrepresentation can fool either party, which rarely happens. However, desperation on either side will ultimatley prove the downfall and a problem seemingly solved has in fact been created. Of course mistakes do happen, but then also markets can change, strategic plans not fully supported, followings not materalise can have a huge detrimental impact, makeing a star hire fall to sub-zero levels. As with any apparent 'poor hire' remember there are clearly two sides to the following publicity and it is often who shouts first, rather than the loudest that often is remembered.
Posted by John Lacey | 2/06/2008